In This Matrix
by Countess Millarca
Summary: Kagome doesn't want children. She's already raised one child when she's been a child herself. But when she finds one quite-not-human child near her home, she can't just turn her back away. And when his brother comes seeking him, she can't just give him back like that. AU
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha. All rights belong to Takahashi Rumiko.

 _A/N: I wasn't going to post stories on this site again after what happened, but a dear friend who isn't familiar with other sites asked me to do so as a personal favor. Since this story is being written as a birthday present for her, I made an exception. For those of you who wondered what happened to my stories, but didn't check my profile for an explanation, you can find links for the rest of my works there._

 _I'm going to give warnings for this story because it touches sensitive matters. The vignettes at the beginning of each chapter aren't in chronological order on purpose. It's more thematically connected. Chapter length will vary and updates will be once a week for the time being.  
_

 _ **Warnings:**_ _Domestic violence, child abuse, postpartum depression, drug addiction, escapism._

* * *

Kagome is eight years old when she feels the brutal side of her mother's touch. It is swift and unexpected and – _it burns_. Her neck snaps and she's hitting the floor before the slap has fully been perceived. It's much later that the recoil sinks inside and becomes vibration in friable bones. The cause is forgettable – Kagome is tired and she has to feed Sōta and she's got studies and in between all that she's forgotten to do the laundry – but the effect is something she can never forget.

She lies where she falls and just stares up into her mother's eyes – glazed with something less lucid, unfocused, as if she can't recognize her own daughter, what she's done. Her mother's breathing comes fast and frantic. She's hyperventilating, collapsing to her knees, reaching out with blind eyes, shaking arms. Kagome barely breathes, hunches back on instinct. Her cheek burns…but she fears that it'll burn a thousand times worse if those hands touch her now.

Her eyes sting more than her skin. She whispers _sorry_ and picks herself up. She must feed Sōta and finish her studies and – _do the laundry_. Her mother's cries reach her ears, but she tunes the sound out. It's… _pitiful_. She's learned the word but hasn't known what it means until now.

She hates _pity_.

* * *

It's close to midnight and the newspaper is almost empty. Kagome and Sango are the only ones left in the editorial department, making some last minute edits. Sango's husband has called four times by now, only to receive the same cranky lines Sango always hisses, flushed, flustered – _I'll be done soon_ and _go to sleep already_ and _stop calling every twenty minutes_. Kagome shakes her head, offering to shoulder the rest of the work. Not much is left, and unlike Sango, no one waits for her back home.

"You sure you can finish up all on your own?" Sango grimaces, seemingly torn, but Kagome can tell she really wants to go home, if only to berate her worrywart of a husband for always making such a big deal out of her overtime.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." Kagome sighs, all but shoos her away. "Go home before your husband comes to take you by force."

"Alright, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow." Sango's smile is full of gratitude and relief. She's halfway out of the office when she turns around with another smile. "Oh, and lunch is on me."

Kagome waves absentmindedly. Being treated to lunch is nice and all, and she doesn't dislike Sango, but that's not why she's offered to take on the extra work. She just likes working alone. It's quiet and calm and she doesn't have to deal with other people. Her coworkers think she's a perfectionist. An overachiever. A workaholic. Someone who has no life outside of work. They aren't wrong…but they aren't right either. She works long hours because she has to pay for her brother's tuition and she has no social life because she can't stand most people.

It's half past one when she finally finishes, gathers her things, and locks up. The security guard nods at her as she leaves the building, and Kagome can see pity in his eyes. She's always the first to come to work and the last to leave. She's also the only one nearing thirty who isn't married with kids or planning to do so. It doesn't matter what the old man thinks, and she can't tell him what to think, but he shouldn't pity her so easily. Not when he probably doesn't even know what _real_ pity is. But she supposes that's how humans are. They need to pity someone else to forget how pitiful they are. They need to focus on what goes wrong in other people's lives to forget all the things that go wrong in theirs.

The streets are practically empty and the ride home doesn't take longer than half an hour. Finding parking space close to her apartment building though is another matter. By the time she does, less than two blocks away, fatigue has seeped into her bones. Kagome can barely keep her eyes open and all she wants to do is shower and sleep. Her steps are sluggish, her heels clacking in the silence, dragging on the concrete. She shouldn't be able to hear anything else in her exhausted state – but _she does._

A low growl filters in her ears, raises gooseflesh on her arms. It comes from deep inside the nearest alley and it isn't a human sound. She should keep walking, or better yet run, despite that she will most likely trip and fall on her heels. But there's _something_ in that sound, something _familiar_. She stretches her ears, tries hard to place what that thing is, where she's heard it before. It strikes her like the first strike she's ever felt.

Something wounded that doesn't know what sound to make. It still isn't human but there's something humanly vulnerable. It's the same sound she remembers crawling out of that eight year old's throat, mixing with the noise of the laundry machine. More growling than crying. More animal than human.

Kagome knows she shouldn't – but her feet are moving…and she is walking inside that alley. It's a narrow space, littered with garbage, air dank and nauseating. Her neighborhood is better off than others but not by much. There are still places like this, dark tunnels, filled with shadow and decay, danger slithering in quiet corners. She stays close to the wall the deeper she goes because it's tangible and gives her some feeling of safety.

Carmine gleams in the dark, breaks through the dimness in her eyes, and for a moment, Kagome thinks what she hears is the blood-pulse of some feral beast as it writhes and gurgles in its death throes. Her feet come to an abrupt stop mere inches away from the blood-red-mass. She stands petrified, stunned. Curled into a corner, curled into himself – _is a boy_. A boy dressed in all red sweats, barefooted, with white-colored hair, rocking back and forth and muffling his growl-like cries between his knees. Kagome can't tell his age for sure with the way he's made himself into a tight ball, but judging from his size, he can't be more than five years old.

Kagome is dashing forward before she's cogent of the movement until she's kneeling above his trembling form. Cautiously, she's reaching out an arm, but before she can touch him, the boy makes another inhuman sound. Teeth pierce through the thin skin of her wrist. Sharp pain, sharp bite. It's much sharper than it should be, much stronger. A yelp spills past her lips and she tries to make him let go but the boy's jaw is locked around her wrist. Hot saliva pours into the holes his teeth tear, trickles down her fingers with her own blood. These are not teeth…but _fangs_.

Panic coils around her nerves, numbs the fear, the confusion, the disbelief. If she keeps struggling, it's possible that he might mangle her wrist, crush her bones. She pulls him closer then, wraps her other arm around his shoulder, fingers buried in the thickness of his hair, and shushes him with sweet nothings in his ear. Slowly, the sounds shift lower, his aggression ebbing, the grip of his teeth slackening, enough that she can pry her hand out of his mouth.

Kagome doesn't know how much time she spends in that filthy alley just holding him, but she knows it's dangerous to stay there for long at this hour of the night. With wary, tender motions, she gathers him in her arms and makes to stand. Something fur-soft brushes the underside of her chin. She lowers her eyes to the top of his head, sees animal-shaped ears, but the shock is lessened at the discovery. The human throat can't make such sounds. The human denture doesn't have such teeth. She's already known before she sees his ears that he is _something_ _other_. Something quite-not-human.

And still…she takes him home.


	2. Chapter 2

Kagome is twenty years old when she meets one of her high school classmates on the street. Perhaps their paths are meant to cross on this specific day. Or perhaps it's pure coincidence. She's learned to take things as they come by now, but there are some things that are harder to swallow than others.

Eri hasn't changed much. She's still carefree and more than a little bit shallow. Qualities that have made her popular in school, that have kept Kagome from forming any sort of deeper relationship with her. She's also very much pregnant. Kagome smiles but it is tight on her lips, and she knows that if she asks about Eri's condition, she won't like the answer she'll get. Still, she asks. Maybe because she needs to know that she's right, that there are people who are simply not worth the effort.

Eri shrugs and chirps that _stuff happens_ and _what can you do_. Casually, carelessly.

Kagome's smile becomes tighter. She says nothing more than what is typical and expected then goes on her way. She _is_ right. Those kind of people…she loathes. The world is filled with all sort of people – but nobody is worse than those who make light of the weight a life carries.

* * *

The clock on the kitchen wall rings four o'clock and the smell of greasy bacon permeates the air. Kagome flips the bacon strips in the frying pan mechanically. Her wrist throbs with seething sensations, but she refuses to take painkillers, not that she even has any. She hates drugs and addictive substances of any nature, caffeine and nicotine being the exception. Her gaze shifts to the boy sitting on one of her kitchen chairs, short legs kicking beneath the table, nervous, silent. He hasn't spoken one word. Kagome has given him a bath, treated all superficial scratches, and dressed him in one of her shirts. Her wrist injury is more severe than his wounds, but he's malnourished, and probably dehydrated.

Now that he's clean, she can see that his hair isn't exactly white. It glints pure silver, long enough to reach the backs of his knees. It's pretty and unnatural, but then again, there's nothing natural about him. His eyes are honey-gold, with black-slit pupils, his nails sharp-tipped, his canines keenly elongated. His ears are soft to the touch, triangular, covered with pale fur. She doesn't know _what_ he is. Only that he's isn't human. It makes no difference. He's still _just a boy_. More scared of her than she is of him.

When she finishes cooking, she puts a large plate with eggs and bacon, a bowl of steaming rice, and a glass of milk on the table. She smiles at him then takes her coffee cup and moves to the window to have a smoke and give him some space. He's wary at first, taking a couple sniffs before he even touches the plate, but hunger overpowers all notions of holding back once he's taken the first bite. Kagome cleans up after he's done and refills his glass. Taking a seat across from him, she catches his eyes, speaks with mellow tones, soothing.

"Can you…talk?"

His chin dips, almost shyly, but he still keeps quiet.

"Okay." A smile stretches her lips. He strangely reminds her of Sōta at that age. Human or no human…he's still just a boy. "My name's Kagome. What's yours?"

"Inuyasha." His voice spills out of his throat thin, tremulous, uncertain.

Kagome frowns at the peculiar name then stifles a laugh. _Inu, huh? So these are dog ears…_ It makes sense in an offbeat but simple way.

"Do you have parents? Someone I can call?"

He fidgets with the hem of his shirt, answers after a few seconds. "Mama…I think she – died."

Caught off-guard, she stares at him, dumbstruck. "You _think_ she –" Kagome clamps her mouth shut, bites her tongue. His mother _is_ probably dead. A sigh builds in her lungs and she lets it out with a long exhalation. There's no point in asking him more about his mother now. The kid has been traumatized enough for one night.

"What about your dad?"

His brows furrow as if he's trying to remember. Not a good sign. "Mama said he died long ago."

 _Of course he did._ Kagome sighs again. "Isn't there anyone else?"

There _has_ to be someone. He's just confirmed that he's had parents at one point, so it's not like he's one of a kind in this world. No matter what he is, there are others of his race out there, under the public radar. She needs to find them and return him to them because the alternative is terrifying. It doesn't matter that he's a small, defenseless child. If the government learns of his existence, they'll subject him to numerous tests and probably dissect him under the pretense of knowledge and evolution. Unit 731 and their inhuman experiments may be something that's been silenced and written off as war atrocities, but everyone knows it has existed off the records.

He squirms in his chair, words tumbling out of his mouth too quickly. "Niisan…dunno where he is." Hope shines in his eyes, bright gleam of gold, and something else. Kagome doesn't care what it is right now. There will be time to learn more of his relationship with his brother later…after she finds him.

"What about your last name?"

A shake of his head is all he gives. This is frustrating, beyond maddening. Kagome takes in a deep breath to calm her frazzled nerves. It's not the boy's fault that he's unclear of his circumstances. In fact, his replies are coherent and his eyes sparkle with intelligence. She can't really expect more of him.

"All right." Her lips slant in a half-smile, and she tries a different approach, in hopes of different results. "Can you tell me why you were alone?"

"Came to look for niisan." He makes a grimace of disgust, nose wrinkled, lips peeled back. "Can't find him. It's strange here…many smells. I got lost."

The full display of canines should alarm her…but it's cute when he does it – and what he says is more alarming than the apical points of his teeth.

"You came searching for your brother?" It's unthinkable that he's been wandering alone in such a big city, that he's been allowed to do so. Especially since he can't blend in, not with his unearthly features. What kind of sibling allows for that? It strikes a chord deep inside her. Teeth bite the inside of her lip, almost bleed the soft flesh. She's sacrificed so much for Sōta that maybe her standards have become abnormally high…but gods help her if there isn't some good reason behind this level of negligence. She can only think of one reason, and it still isn't good enough, but it's something. _Maybe they don't live together –_

"You don't live with him?"

Another shake of his head. Kagome exhales the breath she's been holding. Anger leaches away but not all of it. Some small part sizzles quietly beneath the surface. If she ever finds that brother…no. _When_ she finds him. She needs his name to find him though.

"What's his name?"

"Sesshōmaru."

There's something in the way he speaks the name that's stranger than the name itself. It's a cluster of emotions, meshed together, nearly inseparable – fear, respect, admiration, jealousy, and many others she can't quite decipher. She files it away for later inspection again and focuses on the most pressing problem.

"No last name?"

Kagome expects that he'll shake his head once more, accepts the reality of it all with grudging resignation. A weary smile hangs on her lips. She reaches out to stroke his cheek, and this time, there's no violent reaction on his part. His skin is smooth and warm…just like human skin. It's easy to forget he isn't human if she closes her eyes.

"You're not…human, are you?"

He leans into her touch, face turned away, breath fanning against her palm, words slipping past her fingers. It's almost as if he's…hiding.

"Mama was human. I'm hanyō."

 _Hanyō._ Kagome twirls the word inside her mind, once, twice. Knowing what he is doesn't make it any less extraordinary, any less unbelievable. There's truth behind every myth, that much is proven, but to this extent? It's…surreal. Her head is pounding and she rubs her lids. She can only understand _half_ of what he is – and so she grasps that like a lifeline.

"So half-human?"

A nod this time. Okay. She can deal with that, and if she finds his brother, she won't have to deal with the half that is alien to her.

"When was the last time you saw your brother?"

There's a small pause. Foreboding. "Years ago."

Kagome, too, is rendered speechless for long seconds. "Years…?" Now that…is just too much to be absorbed. Maybe she has misheard him. "How old are you?"

His entire face lights up and he's bouncing in his seat. "I'll be twenty soon!"

She's obviously heard him right…and it's still too much for her. Kagome really needs to find his brother. _Soon_.

"Why don't you live with your brother?"

He shrugs. "Dunno. Mama said it's..." His face scrunches up. A stutter is all that comes out of his mouth. "…com-comp-something."

Kagome chuckles. It may be surreal…but it's still cute. "Complicated?"

Another nod. She takes it in stride, wonders if maybe she hasn't been asking the right questions, so she changes her perspective.

"How were you going to find your brother?"

"Scent." His cheeks flush with color. "I know how to follow scents."

She studies him closely, gathers that it must be a skill worthy of compliment for his kind. Laughter bubbles in her throat, and she gives his rosy cheek a light pinch.

"That's very impressive."

He giggles, embarrassed, satisfied. Then his giggles dry up. His expression wilts, becomes troubled. "But I can't find him."

Kagome hums, ruminating. She's far from an expert, but if a child can scent-track, then it stands to reason that an adult of his kind will be even better at it. At least she guesses that his brother is an adult.

"Maybe he can find you? Can he also follow scents?"

His eyes grow wide and he breaks out in a squeal. "He can!" It doesn't last long again. "But he's not looking for me."

His eyes are hooded now. It's easy to infer what he doesn't say, what he doesn't want to say. Kagome strokes his hair, runs her fingers through the silky mass.

"He doesn't know your mother…passed away, does he?"

A sigh creeps up her throat when he murmurs a strangled _no_. She really doesn't have much of a choice here. Sōta has been living in his college dorm for the past two years and doesn't much use his old room. But that's not the issue. Kagome is tired of taking care of others – she just _can't_ do it all over again. A child is a huge burden in another meaning. _It won't be for long._ The phrase is repeating itself in her mind. _Not for long_. Only until he finds his brother, or his brother decides to look for him.

"Do you want to stay with me then?" Even as she asks, she knows it's not a question but a decision already made. He can't say no. She can't let him say no. He doesn't either way.

Inuyasha peers at her through his lashes, abashed, smiling. "You're nice, Kagome. Mama said humans weren't nice."

That gives her pause, knits her brows. "But wasn't she human?"

His neck tilts in a small nod. "Mama was nice. But she said humans aren't nice like her."

She understands then. Humans can barely sympathize with their own kind.

"I'm sure she was trying to protect you." Kagome ruffles his hair and smiles but it is tight on her lips. "And she was right. Most humans…aren't nice."

* * *

Two weeks pass. She makes breakfast for two every morning. It's nostalgic and messy and sends her to work with a smile.

* * *

Four weeks pass. She begins teaching him kanji. His nails make it hard for him to hold the pencil properly, but Kagome feels that if she cuts them, it will be like cutting a part of him – his _real nature_ – off. She buys a calligraphy set then. It's much easier for him to use a brush, and he's learning quite fast, but she discovers that his technique just…plain sucks. He's never going to dabble in fine arts.

* * *

Two months pass. She doesn't like that he's alone at home for so many hours and her contract allows for pets. A dog requires too much care though, and she isn't fond of rodents, reptiles, or insects. A bird in a cage is…nothing but irony – and loud. So she goes down to the animal center and adopts a cat. A rather chubby feline with patches of black and brown on her white fur. Lazy. Temperamental. Self-sufficient. Surprisingly, it is a perfect fit. Inuyasha calls her Buyo for reasons Kagome will never understand since the furball is nothing alike a gnat. He pulls on her tail and rolls on the floor with her and Kagome can't help but laugh when Buyo hisses and looks down her nose at him as if to say _stupid dogs_.

* * *

Four months and two weeks pass. She has to work overtime on the day she's promised to be home early and bake a cake for him. It's his goddamn birthday and she needs to leave work _now_. Inuyasha rarely complains, usually does as he's told, so obediently that sometimes she wishes he'll be a little bit petulant, a little bit difficult. Like normal boys of his age – but _he isn't normal_.

By the time she leaves work, Kagome is a knot of nerves and can't get home fast enough. She parks her car haphazardly, uncaring that she'll probably find a ticket stuck on her window shield come morning, and hurries through the back alley despite that she knows she _shouldn't_.

She becomes aware that she isn't alone in the alley far too late. There's something else in there, with her, silent, edgy, _waiting_. Kagome sees what it is before she feels its savage grip – the quintessence of aggression, coils of steel around her neck, cold-skinned strangulation. _He_ is more than a man, less than a beast. Her back is slammed against the wall. The rush of the action pulls what little breath is trapped in her lungs out of her lips. Balancing herself on tiptoes and his inhuman grasp, Kagome wraps her fingers around his wrist, nails biting and digging into his flesh.

Chest heaving and out of breath and glutted with terror, she gazes into his eyes as she is pushed into that wall. How his eyes glare with keenness, spiked with edge, howls with animal instinct. _Quiet_. _Close_. There is a glint of something dark in his eyes – predator eyes, hunter sharpness. It rouses crawling sensations, shivers and dread licking her spine. When he speaks, his voice sears her lips. Low rasp of that aggression, whispered and rusted.

"Why do you carry my brother's scent, woman?"


	3. Chapter 3

Kagome is eighteen years old when she has the last conversation with her mother. The last hurt. The last pity. The last love. She can't tell when _I love you_ has become something else, corrupted by all the lies, the tears, the promises, the bruises. It has only gotten harder and harder to believe there's some sliver of truth until she can no longer hide behind the phrase.

Her mother lies sobbing on the bedroom floor while Kagome speaks. She tells her that she's passed her university exams, that she'll take Sōta with her when she leaves, that she hasn't done so before only because of law technicalities. If she calls social services then her mother's drug addiction, her chronic depression, her violent outbursts, her mental instability will be known and she may be separated from Sōta. Not anymore. She's an adult. Kagome has legal rights to assume guardianship, has already filed the petition.

That's when it comes…that loathsome phrase. Softly spoken, pitifully. Kagome doesn't know what hurts more. The realization that it has been her drug of choice all these years or that she has grown immune to it now. She kneels on the floor, cups her mother's cheeks, fingers scalded by the salt-heat of tears, eyes empty but mouth full of words. All she sees is death and void and pity. She resents her – her existence, which is the physical manifestation of pity, that she's been used and abused and addicted just like her, that _I love you_ which is antithetical to its nature.

Her eyes slash through her mother with the cutting end of that resentment. Kagome promises her that if she gets herself cleaned up and seeks professional help then she'll allow her to visit Sōta – but to her… _she is dead._ It's not the first time they've had this kind of conversation – but it's the first time she ends it with these words. Slim fingers coil around her neck then, weak constriction and _please don't do this_ and _you don't mean that_. Her mother isn't trying to strangle her but there's not much difference, not enough breath in Kagome's lungs. She peels those shaky, clammy hands off of her and rises, leaving her mother a broken mess on the floor and reaching for the pills on her nightstand.

The morning that comes is the last time Kagome sees her. Eyes glassy, dead brown, pupils constricted. Skin cold, pulled tight around thin bone, rigor mortis spread through muscle tissues. The autopsy results list drug overdose as cause of death. Kagome has another word for it. Phonetically pleasing, insidious, something that palliates the meaning of murder.

 _Matricide_.

* * *

The alley is silent and she's slowly going insane. Perhaps that is the price she has to pay for sheltering something inhuman. Perhaps it is because those fingers are pretending to be something they can't be – Kagome can't name the impetus behind the need but _she needs to feel him_. It's not enough that his fingers are long and strong and unlike her mother's. He isn't trying to strangle her and the sensation is eerily similar to that wretched memory. The frontiers separating past and present are blurred, and in between, madness guzzles reality, reshaping flesh, obscuring the distinction of gender.

She's under the rush of fear and out of her mind, choke-full of adrenaline and controlled by visceral impulse. Her heart is racing with an irregular rhythm as if it will rip through and leap out of her chest any second now. It's only the flex of sinewy muscle as she drags her fingers high up his arm that gives her a lick of sanity – and when she reaches the base of his neck, she pulls him down on her. Hard, fast. There's a low grunt, hotness and teeth grazing the juncture of her neck and shoulder, something solid and unmovable that she barely manages to move – and he _feels like_ _a man_. That is all she needs. To wake her from this mindfuck. This silence, this madness.

The muscles in her thighs blaze hot, hotter than blood flowing in swollen veins, burn with the urge to lash out. Kagome can't tell that she actually has until the pressure of his hold leaves her neck, swaps places on her body. In a split moment, and through the flaming haze, air deluges her lungs and fingers are gripping her calf before her knee can collide with his ribs sideways. She's breathless and shaking with spasms, staring into his eyes as he pulls back but stays close. Close enough to map the expanse of his body with her own. Sweat trickles down the line of her spine and she arches on pure reflex. He twists her leg to curl it around his hip, grinds against her in the heat of the motion. It extinguishes the vestiges of what can't be. He's definitely a man.

His words crawl out of the recesses of her mind then, climb up to the surface. She licks her lips, one sweep of tongue and teeth sinking in the wet flesh. It draws his eyes, that unfathomable black. Kagome searches for some trace of gold but all she finds is variations of black and human eyes. Nothing but illusion. He can't be human…only something that masquerades as one. She sees it in the dilation of his pupils, the lithe poise of his body. The way he has her pressed against that wall, the way he traces the curve of her mouth as she gasps for breath. Primal and raw. He can't be anything other than what he claims to be.

"You're…Inuyasha's brother." It slithers down her tongue and surges out of her throat on panting breaths.

He keeps quiet, even though his fingers uncoil, slacken, languor in his grasp, in his strokes – but his eyes are sharp, shadow of glaring edge. Her knee is being uncurled, lowered, nails scraping high up her thigh…then he leans _closer_. His scent inundates the air she breathes. Smokiness, notes of bergamot, and underneath that, something wild and heavy soaking through her skin. Kagome swallows, tastes the man with each shallow intake.

"What are you?" His voice is hard metal and cuts deep.

It's the epitome of irony, that he is the one to ask this question, that he asks _what_ instead of _who_. Her lips quirk wryly and his eyes narrow by a margin.

"Kagome." She gives her name because it's painfully obvious to see that she is _human_ – but she is her own person…not her whole species.

And sometimes, she doesn't even feel human.

* * *

Inuyasha is asleep in his room with Buyo curled near his feet above the blanket. There has been no cake baked, no blowing out candles, no hugging and kissing, only the promise that they'll do all that tomorrow and more. The boy hasn't made the slightest fuss after his brother has walked past the threshold. Just a timid murmur of _niisan_ colored with all the things that pass through his voice each time he says it. She has tried hard to decipher what they are all these months but still doesn't know even half of them. No matter how much coaxing she's done. It doesn't matter now. His brother is here and she can just straight-out ask.

Kagome sits across from him on the kitchen table, and in the middle, one bottle of Jameson 12 Year Old Special Reserve, two whiskey glasses, and a stainless steel ice bucket. She isn't one for drinking, but when she does drink, she wants quality, rich, smooth taste, creaminess melting on her tongue and wet fire down her throat to settle in layers of heat and satisfaction low in her belly. She pours herself a drink and leaves it up to him whether to partake in it or not.

 _Her_ story has been summarized in one sentence that spans less than thirty seconds: _I found him in an alley over four months ago and took him in._ Nothing more, nothing less. He seems to like the brevity and simplicity of it, judging by his subtle nod and the fact that he pours himself a drink.

Kagome waits for him to share his side of the story and observes him quietly. Closely. Eyes black, hair black, skin pale. No fangs, no claws, no animal ears. He can pass for human. Easily, terrifyingly so. But what strikes her is the differences between the siblings. His bone structure is more refined, his eyes more slanted, his build more sinuous. He is all angles and leashed aggression. He seems like the kind of man who hunts in the dark, who takes rough and hard and silently…and that's an awful derailment of thought.

What has happened back in that alley is still fresh-wrought in her mind. Maybe she shouldn't drink – but the rim of the glass is already touching her lips. Cold-hot-ecstasy. Minutes pass by and he still doesn't talk or drink. She watches him from across the table – watches as he gives his glass a slow twist, and another, feeling his way around the crystal texture, the iced surface. What kind of thoughts cross his mind? What kind of images? What –

He drains his glass all at once. The sound of glass hitting wood is deafening in the thick silence. She can't take it anymore.

"You don't look like him." More challenge than statement.

His eyes pierce right through her, flash an unnatural gold, like ichor, immortal blood and slick venom and lethal to humans. It is over in an instant. A _tsk_ echoes and she huffs.

"I guess he took his personality from his mother." Two pair of lips twitch. Two glasses are being refilled. She holds his eyes, black clashing, sizzling with tension. "Is she dead?"

"Izayoi died five months ago."

It hangs in the space between them shimmery and haunting like fog, one answer that births so many questions. The first to fall off the seam of her mouth is stony and tinged with accusation.

"Why didn't you look for him sooner then?"

"I only learned she died today."

There's harsh truth in his tone. It slays her momentum, and she can only hum an ineloquent _oh_. He doesn't stop there either.

"I visit them once every five years on Inuyasha's birthday. When I visited today…all that was left was her corpse."

Shock is too mild a word for what lances through her at the grisly reality his words evoke. Her mouth opens and closes but no words come out. Kagome downs her glass, hisses through gnashing teeth and denial.

"How can –" She still can't bring herself to form the question but he seems to know that.

"They lived alone in the mountains since Inuyasha can't conceal his features. No visitors but me. He probably didn't know he had to bury her."

It makes sense, but somehow, when he presents the facts in such a sterile, detached manner, the morbidity is amplified tenfold. Kagome latches onto what doesn't make sense even if it feels like she is digressing.

"Why only once every five years?"

"That was the deal we had." His voice grows deeper, heavier. "You know he's hanyō. Did you also know he's an illegitimate child?"

It shouldn't surprise her…but it does. "No."

The puzzle is rearranging itself in her mind with the addition of the missing pieces – she abhors the end picture.

"Izayoi wanted to raise him until his coming of age, and that was fine by me. But my mother would only have Inuyasha in her home under the condition that he came alone."

She has figured it is something along those lines the moment _illegitimate_ has slipped past his lips. But the coming of age…that is unexpected.

"When would that be?"

"In human years, that would be fifty. Only he'd look like he's twelve."

Another thing she has guessed by simple calculation. It's what follows by natural progression that rouses speculation. "And then?"

"Then we'd take him in, teach him our ways, his powers." Matter-of-fact, beyond dispute or even debate.

Kagome doesn't like the connotations, but she'll let it slide until she has gained all the answers. "How to conceal himself like you do?" One slant of his neck. She hums, satisfied for now, changing the focus. "What about his…your father?"

"He died before Inuyasha was born." It isn't merely cold – it transcends that, plunges in abysmal waters and the monsters dwelling within.

Shivers erupt, sensational explosions all over her body, rush from her arms to her abdomen down to her toes, skin damp with cold sweat and gooseflesh. She doesn't want to touch _that_.

"Okay." A sigh writhes across her tongue, rolls off weary and defeated. There's only one thing left to ask at this point. "So what now?"

His eyes bore into hers, keen-edged, impenetrable. "We'll take him in."

Kagome sucks in a sharp breath, lips thinned, knuckles white and curling around her glass. It isn't anger but _something_ else – dark matter, far-spread and living deep inside her, its tendrils wispy but thorn-vined. It is barely below the surface, still visible, easy to pull out and watch it writhe and die, but Kagome pushes it deeper, gives it more and feeds its hungers. She'll be damned if she lets such a sweet boy suffer through even half of what she imagines he will. When she can respire again, she pours herself another drink, and glares at him, openly, disguising nothing.

"Look, no offense…or hell, take all the offense you want, but you don't seem eager to raise him. As for your mother…like you said, he's an illegitimate child."

"He's blood. Nothing else matters."

There is such absolutism in his tone, such sovereign, that it takes all of her restraint not to hit him. She loathes that sort of stereotyped reasoning. It's nothing but gilded varnish to excuse what is inexcusable.

Kagome grits her teeth and speaks past the rage. "And if I wanted to keep him?"

"Izayoi was human – but she was his mother. You're nothing to him." It is too casual, plaited with indifference. She has never heard someone utter such things in such tones, that she is more than stunned, more than speechless. "And you're what?" He leans back in his chair, appraises her slowly. "Thirty?"

Kagome's eyes glaze for a quiet moment, then search for the whiskey bottle, still needing, still craving, but the emotions behind it vastly discrepant to what they have been before he thrusts those words in her face.

"Next year." She grins a mocking grin, raises her glass then empties its contents in one gulp.

It doesn't faze him in the least. "You'll probably die before he comes of age. Do you want the same thing that happened now to happen then?"

Kagome wants to argue, so very badly. But the possibility is undeniable. She tilts her neck far back until she is nothing but a baring of throat and guttural sounds. A growl. A groan. A hiss. A sigh. _Need a fucking smoke._ She rises to her feet and returns with an ashtray then rummages through her purse for her cigarette pack.

Coiled tension, spirals of smoke, silence.

"That –" His voice drips across the silence, heavy and silken. Perhaps amused. "– is a slow and painful death for humans."

She spares him one glance, eyes narrow, growing narrower when he lights one up himself. _What the fuck?_ It hooks on the tip of her tongue but what she throws at him is a gust of smoke. One twist of his mouth, and he is making some kind of raw-throated sound, on the precipice of laughter. _It will kill_ you _. Not me._ She sees that and more in the dark lush of his eyes. What that _more_ is…burns.

"Izayoi died of lung disease."


	4. Chapter 4

Kagome is seven years old when she knows death. She sits alone in the hospital's waiting room while her mother is filling out papers and answering questions.

An amalgam of odors filters through her nose and coolness clings to her skin. It smells of antiseptic and something timeless and intangible chills the atmosphere, something scentless but heavy with substance that she comes to know as death. Death of disease, death of weariness, death of fate. The hospital is filled with voices and all kinds of noise but it is quiet for those who wait. Kagome can feel the death that haunts its corridors but merely that.

She is too young to distinguish death from _death_ , and right now, it is the death of blood that seeps into the fascicles of her nerves. Her father has been carried off to surgery before she has even seen his face. By the time she and her mother arrive to the hospital, he's already been in surgery for an hour. Car accident, or so she's overheard. Her mother slumps into the seat next to her then, skin ashen and bloodless, body nearly bent in half, head hung low, elbows on her knees, fingers laced behind her neck. A nurse takes note and kindly but firmly asks her to correct her stance. It isn't good in her advanced pregnancy to stress her body, she says.

They wait and wait and – _wait_. All that comes is delirium and despair and… _death_. Kagome gorges herself on different kinds of death in the years that pass after her father's death – but only one matters.

Death of innocence. Any other death is infinitesimal in comparison.

* * *

Tension suffuses the atmosphere and smoke is still coming down. A pale nimbus slithers out of her lips, dissolves into breath. Kagome stares at him, no streak of blue in her eyes. Grey hardened to granite, heated to charcoal.

"Did you bury her?" _What was left of her?_ She can't speak the whole sentence but there's no need.

He takes a slow drag of his cigarette, then nods.

"Can we go visit her grave?"

A thin brow rises. "We?" Curious, mocking.

Kagome clicks her tongue, smashes her cigarette in the center of the ashtray.

"It was his birthday today, but with all that happened, we didn't get to celebrate. I promised him we would tomorrow, and I _never_ break my promises." Irritation lines the expanse of her forehead, and she scowls. "If I can help it."

It's glaring that _he_ is the reason she has broken her first promise. And that she _won't_ be breaking this one. "But I'd like it if we could visit his mother in the morning. Will it kill you to give me one more day with him?"

He doesn't rebuff her, or give any kind of answer, merely sits there.

 _Staring_.

Scrutinizing.

Dissecting.

The weight of his gaze is unbearable. Kagome clears her throat, needing to fill the silence with something other than his black-frosted inspection.

"If you don't want to take us then tell me where she's buried and I'll drive us there."

A ring of smoke slips out of his mouth, and if Kagome strains her eyes, she can see an upturn on its corners, as if he's more amused than piqued at her sass.

"The house they lived in was on private property owned by my family. It's not habitable after what happened, but I've arranged for it to be cleansed and renovated. I buried her near there, though it's just an unmarked grave for now."

The gap between her brows wrinkles with confusion. Surprise. She hasn't expected him to share this much and is kind of lost on why he does so. But one thing is certain. He hasn't said no. Hope swells in her chest and leaps out of her throat in one breath.

"So we'll go?"

He doesn't even nod this time. "I'll pick you up in the morning."

His cigarette is put out and he is standing before she can register that he does. Lightning-quick, not an ounce of unnecessary motion. It is lithe, spine-tingling, reminds her that there's nothing human under the guise he wears.

"Thank you," she says simply.

And he's gone.

* * *

Sesshōmaru comes early, so early that Kagome hasn't even had the chance to properly explain the situation to Inuyasha over breakfast. She has told him that they will be going to visit his mother's resting place but nothing beyond that. The boy has been acting subdued ever since his brother's arrival, strapped in the backseat of Sesshōmaru's car, quiet, eyes downcast, barely breathing. It is worrisome and she doesn't like it. Kagome keeps stealing glances at him from the front seat but it's hard to speak. She doesn't want to tell him what is going on in this claustrophobic environment, so she waits to make the revelations until after they return home. Not that it's going to be _his_ _home_ for much longer. The mere thought depresses her.

The ride lasts almost four hours. In absolute silence. Kagome unfurls from the car seat, takes a moment before she unstraps Inuyasha. The mountain air is crisp and pure and wildness susurrates over her skin. Nothing but earth and sky, far-spread, far-reaching. Smells of soil and tree sap, heavy and syrupy on her tongue, and lighter smells, flowers in full bloom and dew licking the grass. Sounds of birds and the buzz of insects, melodious and titillating her ears, and softer sounds, the psithurism of the trees and forest secrets. It's _perfect_ – but more perfect is the smile that curves the boy's lips when he gets out of the car. He must have missed the place.

Kagome smiles and takes Inuyasha by the hand, following after Sesshōmaru's long strides. Where he leads them is a meadow of lush green and wildflowers, meant for children and sun-kissed laughter. His eyes fall on a patch of ground that appears freshly dug with one large rock marking the spot. She gives a brief nod, and he returns to the car with no words exchanged, leaving them to their privacy.

Kagome sinks onto her knees and gathers Inuyasha into her lap. Minutes pass by with her stroking his hair and humming a tune – then he speaks for the first time.

"Mama's here?"

Her eyes flicker to the boy buried deep in her arms.

"Mhm."

He's chewing his lips, brows creased, thoughtful, perplexed. "Why did niisan bury her?"

"We're all born of the earth, so when we die, we return to her."

Silence engulfs them once more. Kagome knows it must be a foreign concept to him and gives him time to absorb it before she parts her lips again.

"But you know, she isn't really gone." His head snaps up, the back of his skull thumping against her collarbone, his eyes wide and full of bemusement. And longing.

"Nothing truly dies until it's forgotten." She kisses his cheek, smiling. "She'll be with you as long as you remember her." Kagome's fingers are circling his wrist, guiding his small palm down to his chest, over the beat of his heart. "Here."

Her hand overlays his and they fall into silence again. Meekly, he sneaks a peek up at her, bites his lower lip. She smiles, urging him on, and his voice spills forth hushed, uncertain.

"Did your mama die, too?"

Her smile turns rigid on her lips, bitter with the slightest touch of sweetness. Something hot and viscous clogs her throat, stretches around her vocal cords, but she forces the words through the glutinous barrier.

"Yes, she did."

"Is she still with you?"

Inuyasha is staring at her with such an open expression – breath of gold-pure fire, _believing_ – that she can only say the truth.

"Some parts of her, yeah."

Kagome has never lied – the only lie she's ever told has become truth before she's realized it can be nothing else.

* * *

Sesshōmaru is waiting by the car when she reaches him, cigarette half-smoked between his lips, one knee bent at a smooth angle, one forearm flat against the car's roof, his back resting lazily against the driver's door. Pale-thin coils slide out of his lips with each rise and fall of his Adam's apple, carried away by the breeze.

Kagome stares at him, frozen in place, jaw locked tight. It's like he's rubbing it in, and though she knows he's right, it's not his choice to make. She smokes maybe five cigarettes a day, fully conscious of the health hazards and despite of them. If she ever decides to quit, she will do so on her own terms and because she wants to. If she's learned one thing from her mother…is that nobody can force a person to quit their poison just because it's poison.

Inuyasha is still at his mother's grave after Kagome's encouragement to stay and speak to her as if she's right next to him. Some people like to speak to the dead to keep their connection alive. Perhaps he's one of them. They won't know until he tries, and she has things to discuss with his brother that she doesn't want the boy to hear. Kagome opens her mouth – she plunges straight to the heart of the matter with the delicacy of broken glass.

"Can you bring him here on his birthday every year?"

He exhales slowly and tilts his neck in what she perceives as a nod. Swift, definite. She has been ready to fight him tooth and nail about this, has steeled her nerves for the coming argument, that his easy acceptance has her blinking and baffled, lips slightly ajar. It takes her a few seconds to regain her composure.

"Good," is all she can say. Still mildly confused.

"Why?"

That _why_ catches her unprepared, confuses her even more. Kagome looks at him, aghast. It should be damn obvious why she makes such a request of him…but if he needs to know then she'll damn well enlighten him. He speaks again before she can, though.

"You're still young enough to have children of your own. Why do you want him? He's not even human."

 _Oh_. Kagome draws back, reigns in her anger. It seems that she has completely missed the mark with that _why_. Though to be fair, her misunderstanding is quite justified based on their talk. A sigh works its way out of her too-tight lips, and she shakes her head.

"I don't." It's emphatic and she doesn't care if he'll believe her or not. "I don't want children."

He is watching her carefully now. Half-lidded, maybe intrigued. But she can tell that he _does_ believe her. He stays silent, takes another drag, almost taunting her. Tempting her.

A chuckle rumbles in her throat. _To hell with it_. Kagome snatches his cigarette, aware that he must have seen it coming. With his reflexes, he's had more than enough time to stop her if he wants – but he doesn't. The paper is warm and damp and has the taste of his skin. The tobacco tastes even better than usual. More potent, spicier. She doesn't know if it is because of the different brand or just the fact that she has stolen it from him. They do say that there's some kind of thrill in theft.

Nicotine hits her veins and she moans softly. A grin lifts the edges of her mouth, less grin, more teeth – rows of whiteness and the blunt side of provocation.

"And you're right. He isn't human, and I don't know how to raise him right. But you don't know either."

Her stare cuts through him. He's still watching her, quietly, _waiting_. Kagome gives his cigarette back. Only one drag is left of it now. She delivers her last line as he has the last smoke.

"You may be blood – but you're not _brothers_."

* * *

It has only been a quarter of an hour since their return to her flat. Kagome is more than a little surprised when Sesshōmaru comes up instead of leaving but doesn't make a big deal out of it. He knows what he's inviting himself into. Inuyasha is the first to use the bath, flushing beet red when Kagome makes to follow him since they usually take their baths together, and insisting he can bathe on his own. She has the distinct feeling that his brother's presence elicits this rare show of independence. Still, she's glad for it, laughs and shoos him in the bathroom. It gives her time to actually bake the cake for his birthday.

She makes a pot of coffee first, serves a cup to Sesshōmaru on autopilot, whether he wants it or not. Steaming hot and black. He takes a sip, then another, and that's that. Busying herself with the baking of the cake, she even forgets he's there, until Buyo saunters into the kitchen as if she owns the place. Kagome doesn't pay much attention, pretty much used to it, going over the ingredients in her mind. _I need…hm, eggs, butter._ She is bending over the fridge, searching for those and milk, when she's startled by the purr of pure satisfaction that resounds inside the small space.

 _What the –?_ She turns around fast, two eggs loosely held in one hand, only to see Buyo attached to his left calf, spine curved, eyes closed, purring her throat out.

"She's never that cuddly with me."

The sentence is out of her mouth before she is aware of it and without meaning to say it aloud…but the sight has rattled her.

"That's because you're human."

As if to give gravity to his point, he bends down and drags his fingers over Buyo's mottled fur, then dips them in its softness, stroking, rubbing. One deep, drawn-out purr echoes. Unlike any other. Kagome eyes the fickle feline flatly while Buyo rolls on her back, still purring, shameless and spread out for him. Kagome's brows twitch and he chuckles. It's…unsettling – this image of domestication. Contradicting. His words state one thing but his actions imply another. Kagome doesn't know how to interpret it, so she leaves it be.

"You weren't lying before."

 _Before –?_ Her lips purse, taken aback. Yet again. His predilection to changing subjects abruptly and without the barest warning is throwing her off, but she's starting to get the hang of it. There's only thing he can be referring to in this case.

"About not wanting children?" One dip of his chin. She shrugs, takes out the rest of the ingredients and puts them on the counter, then closes the fridge with her heel. "Yeah. You can tell?"

"You haven't told a single lie so far."

Kagome has her back at him, so she can't tell what expression he's making, if he even makes any, but it doesn't matter much. She gives another shrug, reaching in the cupboard for a bowl to stir the butter with the eggs.

"And I never will. I hate lies."

There's a small pause after that, fraught with something heavy, palpable.

"I spoke with my mother last night. We'll shoulder the living expenses."

The spatula slips between her fingers, clatters on the tiled floor. He _can't_ mean what she thinks he does. Kagome spins around, eyes wide open, lungs burning and breathless.

"Wait…" Her gaze collides with his. "Does that mean –"

"You can have him until his coming of age."

He is dead serious. She can tell by the inflexibility in his tone, the brightness in his eyes. But what stuns her more is that _he is dead serious_. About letting her raise his brother. When only a night ago he has been adamant on the opposite. Kagome will say _yes_ – they both know that – but she needs the _why_.

"Why the change of heart?"

"It was always supposed to be like this. Izayoi's death came earlier than we expected, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything." A sound vibrates in his throat – laughter meshed into sighing and something masculine that gives it an edge. "Maybe it was meant to be, that he's raised by a human."

That answers many whys – but one still remains. Kagome pins him with a piercing stare. Unblinking, unwavering.

"Why did you only visit him once every five years?" Her eyes narrow into thin slits, warning him that she won't let this go until he speaks the truth. "I thought that you just didn't care…but you _kinda do._ Or you wouldn't have agreed to this." She crosses her arms and tilts her head to the side. "So what gives?"

There's that _same_ sound, and honesty.

"I used to visit more often the first five years after his birth, though I doubt he remembers." His eyes become darker – darker than black. "Inuyasha takes after our father in looks. But in my natural form, so do I."

Kagome studies him closely as he speaks. It isn't their color that makes them black but what lives inside them. He has seen… _too much_.

"It became…complicated."

 _Oh_. She reels back, almost stumbles on her own feet. The _why_ is like a hard blow to her empty stomach, deprives her of oxygen, makes her queasy and lightheaded. It's not because what he insinuates is unthinkable…but because it isn't. A film of tangled thoughts flashes through her mind and she can see it happening. Living alone deep in the mountains and the only man who comes is the mirror of things that reflect love and need and lust and damnation. Kagome can't blame the woman any more than Izayoi has probably blamed herself.

Teeth bite the inside of her lip until it bleeds. She is raising her eyes and diving into that fathomless void. Challenge laid bare, decadent, forbidding – his eyes.

"Once a month." She more growls than speaks. "I want you to visit once a month at the very least. It's not…complicated, in our case."

He is standing then. It is so fluid that seems like slow motion. His steps are languorous, and he is coming closer. _Closer_. Eyes burning blacker, knees grazing, shadow and heat looming over her. He reaches out a hand, whirls a tuft of her hair around two long fingers.

Kagome swallows thickly, takes a step back on instinct, her back colliding with the counter. "What –?" Her voice is low and husky and she's so disoriented. She can't tell if he wants to intimidate her or rip her hair out or bite her or –

"I need to know your scent."

He brings them to his lower face and inhales deeply. An unintelligible sound erupts from her throat, something between _oh_ and _hm_ and _mn_ , and her knees have grown weak by the time it's over. He uncurls them with maddeningly slow motions, but doesn't move away, and when he speaks, his voice is smooth and hot on her lips.

"Once a month."


	5. Chapter 5

Kagome is twelve years old when she decides what she wants to become. Someone who speaks the ugly truth. Someone who opens closed doors and liberates the secrets. Someone who shows that what hides in closets is not monsters but helpless fear.

There is only glass breaking and the sound of throat-bleeding mania. Kagome's arms are wound tight around her brother in the dark space of their bedroom's closet. She covers his ears and mouths that _we're okay_ as if there is spell-power in the silent words. Her mother is drifting above and beyond, somewhere between hysteria and ecstasy, veins bloated and mind falling apart for a few hours. It won't last. It never lasts.

Sōta is only four years old. He doesn't know fear and he will never learn the concept of the boogeyman. Only his big sister waits in the closet and under the bed. For him…those places mean safety, warmth, hugs, kisses. Kagome has made it so.

And by the time he is old enough to know fear…only clothes will be in the closet.

* * *

Inuyasha has come out of the bathroom and into the kitchen one hour ago. Feet dangling off the chair, head hung low between his shoulders, ears flattened, lips puckered.

Kagome drowns a small sigh, brings plates, spoons, and one glass of milk on the table. Then the hot-chocolate cake and candles. He peeks at her from under his bangs when she sits down. Unsure, nervous…with the slightest pout.

"Did niisan…leave?"

"Yes. He said he had work to do."

His pout magnifies, spreads across his face, and she chuckles, pinches his cheek. "But he'll be coming to visit you often."

Light enters his eyes, sparkling gold, bubbling excitement. "Really?"

It suits him much more than that pout…though both are cute.

"Yeah." Kagome laughs – but then she remembers that she has overlooked one important fact. "That is…if you want to stay with me. You can always live with your brother and his –"

"No!" His eyes are wide with panic and he is shaking his head compulsively. He lowers them to his lap two seconds after that yell tears itself out of his throat. Bashfulness, flushed cheeks, slow murmurs. "I – wanna stay – with you."

"Okay." She strokes one soft-furred ear and soaks up the sound of his giggles. Picking up the candles, Kagome starts putting them on the cake, and is almost done when he peeks another glance at her. Half-expectant, half-sulking.

"Will he _really_ come see me? Niisan?"

She smothers another sigh, abandons the candles, and drags him on her lap. "That's what he said. Has your brother ever lied?"

Body shifting, head shaking. Kagome gathers him deeper in her arms, hums in his ear.

"You know, he used to come see you a lot when you were younger. Do you remember that?" Another shift, another shake. "It's alright. You must have been a baby then."

"Why did he stop coming?"

It is so low-spoken that she almost misses the question, and to be frank, Kagome wishes she can pretend she has missed it. How can she explain the reason to a five year old? Actually, she doesn't want to explain this mess to him no matter his age. There are some things that should remain unsaid, untouched. Only one word comes to her mind.

"It's complicated."

"Mama said that, too. She said it wasn't my fault and she was crying." His voice goes away for one lagging moment. It comes back hurt, sad, confused. A faint whine. "She cried a lot…so I stopped asking."

"You didn't do anything wrong." Her arms tighten around him, and she is rocking him. Gently. Back and forth. "Sometimes, things just happen."

Kagome hopes to gods it is enough because she has nothing else to give him.

"So niisan…likes me?"

Isn't that another landmine? Kagome bites back her sigh. He probably does…but it's not her place to tell him. She smooths his bangs out of his eyes, tilts his head up until she can see bright gold and innocence.

"Do _you_ like him?"

A softly whispered _un_. No surprise there.

"Have you told him that?"

A softly whispered _no_. No surprise there either.

Kagome kisses his forehead. "Then maybe he's the same."

* * *

It is dark hours when Sesshōmaru returns to the mansion. He has gone to the mountains after work and the tang of blood is clinging to his skin, saturating the smoky traces, potent and heavy. But it has not been enough…prowling, preying, hunting, gormandizing. Her scent is smeared on his tongue beneath the taste of raw flesh and fear. She is molten honey and sizzling. He slings off his coat, loosens his tie, unbuttons his dress shirt down to his sternum and rolls the sleeves up to his elbows, muscles rippling and the grunt of a sigh. Maybe he needs to fight fire with fire. It's late and he doesn't have the patience for meddlesome maids, so he goes down to the cellar himself.

The old cellar is brimming with bottles and jugs – yōkai and human brews, the moonshines he prefers and the liqueurs his mother favors. Sesshōmaru is reaching for his usual choice when he catches a glimpse of green and gold on the upper shelves to his right – _Jameson 12 Year Old Special Reserve._ Is she stalking him even in his own home? Who is the hunter and who is the prey? His throat vibrates with an intrinsic sound, rough and dry, not quite laughter. He grabs the damn whiskey and retraces his steps back to his study room, pours himself a drink and sinks in his leather chair.

 _Once a month_. He knows it will not be once a month. He knows just as his father must have known. That is the way of humans. Once a month is…not enough – not enough for creatures who are gone with the wind. Is it fortune that she is the one to nurture his brother? Is it hell to want her?

The real curse is his nature.

* * *

On his first visit, she thanks him for coming and smiles. He has seen _that_ smile on her lips the day they have visited Izayoi's grave – but she hasn't made it for him then. It is bright-tender-warm and he envies his brother for seeing it every day.

* * *

Women are soft-skinned, their tongues raw nectar, their eyes whispers of things better done in the dark. They are made for touches and words and stares, insidious traps, visceral. He has known many women but none like her – _she_ is all that and more. He sees it in the way she bends her waist when she serves his drink, the way she slants her neck when she speaks his name, that flutter of thick lashes, that cat-curling of red lips. Her manner is direct, caustic, bold. She never hides from his eyes.

Sesshōmaru never hides from her eyes either.

* * *

On his third visit, she brings out playing cards for a game of iroha-garuta. He can tell that she is trying to make him engage with his brother, and that she does so in ways that stimulate the mind and serve as an educational exercise for the pup. It is clever and he plays, if only for the fact that it is his brother who asks him to join. Inuyasha has never approached him of his own will before – Kagome usually pats his back and urges the pup to talk to him or Sesshōmaru calls him himself – and that is _good_.

* * *

She is always the one to welcome him when he visits and never wary of his visits. Sesshōmaru can read the subtle signs. His eyes map the contours of her back, the slope of her spine, the sway of her hips as she leads him inside.

"Coffee, Sesshōmaru-san? Or something stronger?"

Her voice is narcotic tones and mellisonant, as if she is taming a wild beast, and the way she pronounces that suffix is a veil of intimacy. She wants him in her home, beside his brother, near her skin.

Sesshōmaru wants to be there.

* * *

On his sixth visit, she tilts her head and demands more than asks to see what he _really_ looks like. He laughs – because she already knows. Sesshōmaru alters his bone structure in his human guise, enough to appear different though still retain some family resemblance to blind human eyes. But not this time. It is the first time in centuries that he walks the earth with no other difference than mere colors. Still, he sheds his human skin, as she asks, demands. Her eyes never stray from his face and she is tracing the crescent-blue on the center of his forehead. She stares – and keeps staring. Eerily. Silent. An indrawn breath then. _In the name of the moon_ , she deadpans. And she is laughing hysterically.

* * *

His visits become more frequent, more lasting. She never asks the reason, bends and twists and smiles as if it is natural. _It_ _isn't_. Her vocal cords constrict unnaturally around his name and she always speaks too much. His presence is an aberration, a riddle she wants to unravel. _Pleasure_. He knows – but it does nothing to stop him. His eyes linger on the arc of her neck, slender curve and hints of nude skin. He wants to take that throat between his teeth, soft flesh bitten, ravaged. _How_ will she speak his name if he does that? _What_ sound will she make if she can't speak?

* * *

On his ninth visit, she asks him to stay after his brother goes to sleep. He wants to stay as much as he doesn't…but what he wants doesn't matter – because he'll stay anyway.

Curled up on the couch, feet tucked underneath her, she sighs. Sesshōmaru chooses to sit on the armchair, studies her features, her body, the slices of black under her eyes, the curves of her shape that have become slimmer. She is tired and works too much and he is _agitated_.

"Is there no way for him to conceal his features?"

Her voice slips between his thoughts, husky and hauntingly whispery. It gives him something else to think about, something that doesn't make him want to take her up to the mountains and keep her there until she is swollen with life.

"He's too young to learn how."

Brows knitted, seeming unconvinced, she taps a fingertip against her chin. "He knows how to scent-track."

"That's different. It merely requires use of the senses." Now that she's brought it to his attention though, he needs to take Inuyasha in the wild to hone his tracking skills. "And he's still not adept at even that, or he'd have found me easily. It took me less than one hour to track his scent to you once I knew he was looking for me in the city, but he wandered for two weeks and still couldn't find me."

An inaudible _oh_ plumps her lips. Her expression tells him she's both surprised and impressed. He chuckles.

"Well, I just wanted to take him outside sometimes. I work long hours, and there's only so much for him to do in this small flat by himself with only Buyo for company."

There is no dispute about any of that.

"You can take him up to the mountain on weekends if you want. The house has been ready for months. He still won't be around people but he can be outside."

His solution is easy, sensible. It solves more issues than the ones posed as well. Sesshōmaru has things to teach his brother that he can't do in the city.

A smile. A nod. "I'll do that. Thank you." A frown then. "What else can he do?" She's chewing her bottom lip, humming. "I mean, do I need to watch out for anything? Like him shapeshifting or…I don't know, yōkai abilities he's going to develop?"

"Not until his coming of age."

It's obvious that she asks because she wants to raise the pup right. Not out of passing curiosity. Sesshōmaru has suspected this for a while but now it becomes crystal clear. She doesn't want children because she _cares too much_. Because she knows whata mother _is._ There's only one way to learn that without having children…by knowing what a mother _isn't_.

Another smile. Another nod. "Okay. Thank you."

It is he who should thank her – for taking care of his brother, showing him that smile, teaching him what he needs to know to blend in. For being his mother better than his real mother. Izayoi may have been his mother – but at times…she has been more _woman_ than mother. It is ironic that the one he wants is more _mother_ than woman.

Maybe that works in his favor. Maybe he can guilt her in taking some time off. "If you want to spend more time with him –"

"No." She cuts in on his sentence, doesn't even allow it to come to fruition. "You were gonna say that you'll take care of my living expenses as well, right?" Her eyes are blue copper and gleaming heat. "No thank you. I've worked since I was sixteen and nobody is paying my bills but me."

Sesshōmaru has predicted this response but still… _Stubborn woman_. He closes his eyes and stretches his neck. Agitation being expelled in thick waves. Or he'll throw her over his shoulder and carry her up the mountain himself. Right now. When he opens them again, lips soft and wet and curled with amusement greet him, as if he's transparent, and maybe he is. He wants to lick and bite that smirk off her lips and doesn't give a damn for what shows.

"Suit yourself. The offer is always on the table, though. Money is not an issue."

Intrigue swims in her eyes. Cool zaffre, liquescent.

"What does your family do exactly?"

It is a harmless enough question, and he might have answered five minutes ago. A half-smirk ridges his cheek.

"What does yours?"

Laughter fills the room. Pure, electrifying. "Fair enough." It ebbs much the same way it begins. "You know, though, don't you?" Her stare is keen, open demand. "I can't imagine you entrusting me with your little brother without running some background check on me first."

He nods. Naturally.

"Editor for _The Sentinel_. One younger brother studying Law at _Meiji_. Both parents deceased. Never married. No children."

A thin brow quirks. "Just that?" Playful, challenging.

"That's on the papers."

She's staring at him, staring through him. Thin-lipped, narrow-eyed. Knowing, waiting.

"Antisocial. Cynic. Honest. Independent. Open-minded. Sharp-tongued." There's more of that laughter with each adjective that comes out of his mouth. It runs wild across his skin like an electric storm. His brain is numb, transmitting all the wrong signals.

" _Soft_."

Silence. Air crackling. Charged, static. One twist of her lips, and she is huffing.

" _Soft_?" The meaning is discrepant when she says it. Bitterly true. "I don't have a bleeding heart for just about anyone. Inuyasha was an exception."

"Yes." He laughs but it is bitter with that truth, and if she knows, it will become more bitter. "Still –" He can't help but say it again. "Soft."

Sesshōmaru leaves then – because if he stays…he will say things he doesn't mean and she will say things she doesn't know the meaning of.

 _You're nothing to him_ , he has said to her. _You're nothing to me_ , he has said to himself. It is a lie no matter how he distorts the words and he hates lies just as much as she. _It's not complicated for us_ , she has said to him. She is right and she is wrong. _Terribly_. He has let the truth go unspoken because it is so facile that it becomes Gordian. It begins as a little thread, spinning and twining and writhing, until it weaves itself into a knot of diamond-hard silk. Deathless and severed by death. That is the way of yōkai. He _knows_. He _sees_. He _feels_.

The katabasis has begun the first time he meets her eyes in that dim alley. He hasn't meant for it to happen. It merely does. Perhaps it is fate preordained, karmic infliction for horrors inflicted unto others, sin bestowed upon him for sins inextirpable. He has too many to count. It lasts no longer than one flap of hummingbird wings…but it is _more than_ _enough_. He has never seen such eyes – naked shadow, naked color. They are depthless, bathypelagic deep of murmurs and snares – they can swallow and shackle creatures of the darkest nature. _Like him_.

Sesshōmaru has fallen before he knows what falling means and it is too late to unswing the pendulum. It will swing back and forth and measure the acceleration of gravity until he is down on his bended knees and cursing the ground she lies beneath.


	6. Chapter 6

Kagome is sixteen years old when she learns that hypocrisy is merely another form of self-blindness.

The playground is brimming with children and laughter. She is sitting on a bench, half-working on her history assignment, half-watching Sōta out of the corner of her eye. Grains of brown-gold dust are sticking to his skin and he is grinning and building sandcastles alone in the sandbox. He is always alone – Kagome will join him once she has finished her homework – but the eight year old doesn't seem to mind.

Mothers congregate under the shade while their children play and talk of inconsequential things – the latest gossip, their husbands' bad habits, their children's accomplishments, their in-laws' meddling, and so on and so forth. It is a changeless pattern – but sometimes, they'll steal glances at her and Sōta and their voices will lower to whispers and their eyes will fill with things they are not supposed to feel.

Kagome ignores those sighs and looks and pity – because it is nothing but hypocrisy. They don't let their children play with Sōta because the boy may share things their precious angels aren't supposed to know. They don't include her in their gatherings because she is too young to mingle with their ilk and have _adult_ conversations.

People aren't blind – they _choose_ to close their eyes.

* * *

An adumbral vastness is spread over the sky when they slip out of the city roads and into the highway. Amorphous shapes, breaking dawn, silence. Kagome yawns then sips at her coffee, melting into the warm leather, head rolling to the side. Sesshōmaru has one hand on the wheel, staring ahead, the white of his shirt stretched over lean muscle. Her eyes move up the length of his arm and over the jut of his collarbone, the line of his neck and along the angle of his cheekbone, stroke every inch of exposed skin… _perfect_ skin. _I've got it bad…_ A sigh tickles her throat but goes unheard under Inuyasha's loud squeal.

The boy is excited, hyperactive, almost bouncing despite the buckle of the seatbelt keeping him in place. A torrent of questions and high-pitched sounds pours out of his mouth, three quarters of them addressed to Kagome and one quarter to his brother. It takes three hours before he exhausts himself into sleep. Kagome shakes her head, chuckling softly.

"He got overexcited about the trip and didn't sleep much last night."

"It appears so." His voice is the same, deep and low tones, but his looks hold a rugged appeal. If she squints hard enough, Kagome can see the dip of a smirk in the hollow of his cheek beneath the hints of scruff spreading on either side of his face. It adds another layer of something masculine and irresistible.

She doesn't need more, to be more chained than she already is. More ruined. To know more of him. She has seen more than enough these past eight months. He burns with primordial fire that harbingers torture in the hands of mortals. Suffering for the giver and immortalization for the taker. He speaks of death so callously, so bitingly, because even if he dies a thousand deaths, he can never die a true death. But she can…and she will – and if she touches that fire…then it is _she_ who will give him those undying deaths.

How late is _too_ _late_? She doesn't know. All she knows is that it will _not_ be she who makes it too late.

The mountain road is nothing but dirt and twists and turns. Kagome stares out the window – trees with full-red leaves and forest-deep, deepening, thickening. They must be close now. She turns her gaze back to Sesshōmaru, wanting to escape these thoughts, even though she can't allow herself to do so. She…cares too much for that. _For him._

"Is the house going to be like he remembers it?"

"For the most part, yes." He takes a steep turn without as much as blinking. "It's a log home, nothing big. I had them replace most of the wood and add some stone, but the interior didn't change much. There's an onsen near if you want to go. As for personal items, I kept only the photo albums."

Kagome is surprised to hear there _are_ photos, and pleased that he has made sure to keep them. Her mouth softens, and she smiles, a mellow curve of lips. "That's good. Thank you." But being _soft_ is what has inculcated this vicissitude. "Don't you have work to do?" That earns her a sideways glance. She merely shrugs. "I mean, you could have just given me a map."

"I do." There is laughter in his voice – and fatigue. "But it's a good chance to take him hunting."

It hits her then. _He didn't even have time to shave._ If she tells him not to overwork himself though, it will be like the pot calling the kettle black. Kagome can only sigh. He needs this weekend off as much as she does.

"What kind of work?"

"TaishōCorp." Quick-spoken, almost absent-minded.

She blinks once, twice. _Did he just say –?_

"Wha–" Disbelief growls in her throat. "I can't believe this."

It chafes that she hasn't realized this sooner. He may have never divulged his last name but there aren't many people with _his_ goddamn first name. And she works for a paper for gods' sake. It is comically absurd. And rather _convenient_. It's partly her fault for not making the connection…but she can't let him off the hook that easily.

She laughs, eyes him darkly. Calculative glint and sly undertones. "My editor-in-chief has been raving about Chiron Labs for months, but they keep turning us down."

"The cancer research we're funding." His mouth splits in a slow grin that more than implies he knows what she wants. And that he won't make it easy either. "The head researcher despises the press. Kaede is rather…idiosyncratic, more so ever since the clinical trials began."

Kagome can't help but notice the attraction of the man, especially with that lick of grin hovering on his lips. It's not enough to make her give up, though.

"Aren't all geniuses?" She laughs again, eyes him curiously. "But you're the one paying for the research. How come you're interested in cancer? I thought yōkai were immune to human diseases."

"We are." Sesshōmaru fixes her with a stare she can't quite decipher – maybe pity, maybe anger, or even a mixture of both – then assumes his usual expression, black steeped in traces of ennui. "But we're mingling more. Some yōkai choose to mate humans or have human lovers these days. Your lives are short enough without the addition of such ailments."

It is beyond facile to grasp what his words connote, all the things lurking behind _that_ expression, but shock doesn't come, and maybe it isn't supposed to come. She _already knows._

"I see." Nothing more, nothing less. She doesn't want to see – but even if she gouges her eyes out…she will _still_ be able to see.

Kagome peers at him under her lashes, and though her voice is heavier, deeper, she tries to play it off. "Can I maybe interest you in an interview?" Consonants whispery and vowels dragging and sultriness.

"You can –" His lips peel back in a fraction of that decadent grin. "– try."

A flare of heat simmers beneath her skin. "A challenge." Kagome licks her lips, stares into his eyes. No pretense, no disguise.

His gaze falls on the curve of her lips, pursues the strokes of her tongue, and he laughs.

 _Ah_. That laughter. It is raw and molten on her palate but wanes before she can taste all the flats and sharps in the delicious sound.

"We're here."

Her eyes widen at the sight of the large construction he has shrugged off as nothing much to look at. It's exquisitely rustic – rows of cypress wood that shimmers bronze under the autumn sun, floor length windows that create illusions of light and urge physicality. The urge to stand naked behind that glass and stare into the heart of wilderness, to be taken down on animal pelts and claw her way on top then be pushed down again until the fire-shadow turns to flesh-burn and the blood-howling of wolves is but an echo of the dark.

She shivers, near breathless. It is fortunate that Sesshōmaru has taken that time to carry their luggage inside and is only now coming back. Kagome unfastens her seatbelt with a long sigh then steps out of the car just as he reaches her.

"If that is your definition of _nothing big_ then you must think my flat is a rabbit hole."

Sesshōmaru chuckles. "Close enough."

Inuyasha is still asleep in the backseat. She is contemplating whether to wake him now or after she makes lunch since it's nearing noon when Sesshōmaru opens the back door and scoops him up with ease. Quietly, naturally. The boy shifts and sniffs once or twice but doesn't wake, then buries himself deeper in Sesshōmaru's arms, all soft, breathing sounds and maybe…drooling over the collar of his shirt.

Kagome watches the wide expanse of his back as he walks inside and doesn't know what to think – because each thought is more dangerous than the other. _He looks hot from behind_ is a bad thought. Because all that perfect skin is not hers to lick. _I need to wash that shirt_ is an even worse thought. Because then he'll have to take off that shirt. _He'll make a great father_ is the worst of them all _._ Because he won't be having children with her. She _doesn't_ want children. Doesn't. Want. Children. _Oh gods…need to kill myself now._

"Do I have to carry you inside?" His voice flows over the bend of his shoulder. A wicked tease, an iota of eagerness. He _will_ do it. He _wants_ to do it.

It rattles her, spurs her into motion, and she follows him at a more sedate pace, keeping some distance. Sesshōmaru lowers Inuyasha onto the piles of tawny fur strewn before the fireplace once inside, then straightens up, exhaling deeply, lids closing, one palm rubbing the base of his neck. Another thing she has never seen him do. _He must really be tired._

"You can choose whichever room you like."

Kagome half-smiles, half-nods. "Okay, thanks."

"I need to make some phone calls."

 _More work_. A scowl descends on her face, and she is sighing. "I'll get settled in then…make lunch." He's gone before she can get the reply out of her mouth, though she's sure his hearing can catch it.

Her gaze flits over to the napping boy. Inuyasha is gripping fistfuls of fur between his small fingers, face down, completely at home. He won't wake anytime soon. Kagome smothers her chuckle and grabs her travel bag, going up the stairs and choosing the first room she stumbles on. Once she has unpacked and put her clothes in the closet, she comes back down and strides into the kitchen. A stack of photo albums lies immaculate and evenly aligned on the table. She slides the pads of her fingers across the cover of the top album then sits down and opens it.

A woman in her early twenties graces the first photo. She is smiling and she is beautiful. Breathtaking. Her facial bones are high and cut delicately, her eyes coffee-cream gentleness, her lips heart-shaped rosebud. She seems like the kind of woman who can be crushed easily…not the kind to be tangled in an affair. To survive alone. She seems… _like her mother_. Perhaps the reason Izayoi hasn't been crushed isn't because of Inuyasha but because of Sesshōmaru. She hasn't been _allowed_ to be crushed.

More pictures follow, more smiles, loving hugs, loving kisses. Kagome closes the album then, unwilling to stare at the mirror-image of what her life could have been.

Inuyasha wanders into the kitchen one hour later, gold hazed with sleep, sluggish, when Kagome is almost done with cooking.

"Hey, sleepyhead." She wipes her hands on the fabric of her apron and comes to sit beside him.

The boy remains unresponsive, eyes and mouth downcast, and Kagome smiles, ruffling his hair.

"What's wrong?"

"It doesn't smell like mama anymore." Hushed murmur. Bound to happen. Nothing she hasn't expected.

Kagome pulls him on her lap and reaches for the stacked albums. "Is this Izayoi-san?" Smile sweet, tone sweeter.

He bobs his head once, less gloomy, more wistful. Kagome buries her fingers in his hair and gives a light nip to his ear. A giggle then.

"What was she like?"

Slowly, he opens up, speaks more animatedly, squirms and blushes when he has to admit to past mischief, squeals and laughs when she tickles him as playful reminder to be good for her, and that is how Sesshōmaru finds them when he comes back.

* * *

It is a rainless, fading season, winter baying at the heels of autumn. Sesshōmaru lounges on the front porch, watches the pup chase the doe in the coolness of the afternoon. It amuses him, that she wants to help hone Inuyasha's instincts, that she becomes the hunted for the pup when it is she who lays the traps for _him_. Her face is flushed with color, and every time the pup comes close to catching her, she sprints away on light feet and laughter. It goes on like this for a while until she bids the pup to close his eyes and count to one hundred while she sneaks deep into the woods.

 _Hide and seek_. Clever. An arithmetic exercise and a way to improve his tracking skills. Sesshōmaru, too, closes his eyes and samples the air. Earthly smells and animal odors and _her scent_ – dripping honey and sweetness, the gardenia oils she lathers on her body after she bathes, smoke on skin and the zest of perspiration. Her scent clings to particles in the air – but it soon changes, brings the rush of hunger that rouses a hunter's instincts. Sesshōmaru tastes the air once more, senses sharpened, tuned to the beat of that hunger. Blood-copper, sultry and potent, primal impulse seeping in the flesh of his tongue and edging the points of his canines. _Human_ _blood_. Sesshōmaru is moving before he can swallow down the implications of the blood-scent, teeth gnashing, muscles blazing in his thighs.

His speed slows once he comes upon her trail then stops altogether. She is leaning against the bark of an old oak, cursing under her breath, pressing slim fingers against the left side of her neck. Her hair is a wild mess of black ink, her features contorted in a mask of aggravation. It is but one superficial cut, more throbbing annoyance than pain, carelessly acquired.

She is… _fine_ – but he _isn't_. His lips peel back for a soundless snarl, more baring of teeth than sound. Her head snaps up, fingers stilling, quick puffs of breath, chest rising and falling. Teeth sweep across her bottom lip as she watches him through a tangle of matted locks. She swallows once, twice, and again. He can see tension rippling in the cords of her neck and blood-red snaking down low between the swells of her breasts. And her scent changes again, grows thicker, sweeter with arousal.

He needs to leave. He needs to stop. He _needs_ –

He is licking the honey off her skin, the blood, the need, the madness.

"Sesshō–" Made _un_ whole, sliced in half, more curse than name. Fragments of insanity and throat-lust, flesh sucked and soft between his teeth. She draws his name inside her as he draws blood to the surface and devours the echo of its syllables beneath the wet skin. A moan spills and threatens to become his name. Sesshōmaru drags his teeth away from that neck, drags his eyes higher and into hers – ripples of sunless water, falling into that curse, eyes gone dark with _want_ , lips open and stroking the shape of his name. He resents his own name, the throat that moans it. _She_ is perfection and she is the _killer_.

He burns inside out, and for one tortuous moment, he doesn't care if she kills him. The faint sound of small feet running then. Close. Soon to come. Sesshōmaru wrests himself away from her. He will _leave_. He will _stop_. But he wants to hear what death sounds like one last time. His eyes trace the contours of her lips, the fullness of their shape – they are parted and slick-red and gasping his _name_.

* * *

The mountain night is strewn with stars, in threes and fives and tens, points of overarching light, naked outlines of things rarely seen in city night skies. It's pretty…but cold. Kagome zips up her leather jacket then heads outside once she has put Inuyasha to bed. The smell of hard liquor is the first thing she notices before she even comes out to the porch, and when she does, Sesshōmaru's keen eyes. He is lying on his back, one arm under his head, one knee bent, and smoke rising. Languish. Deceptively. Kagome is certain he has felt her long before she sits beside him on the cool wood, but she knows he won't speak first.

She begins with something casual, harmless. Or at least compared to what else hangs between them.

"I need to tell my brother about Inuyasha. It's been over a year now and he's starting to get suspicious that I never invite him for home-cooked meals anymore and we only meet up outside." A humorless laugh escapes her lips, nearly turns to snorting, when she recalls Sōta's latest words in regards to this matter. "He thinks I'm shacking up with a guy…which technically, I am."

His mouth quirks into something wry, thinly amused. "I hadn't pegged you for a pedophile."

She bursts out in genuine laughter. "He's twenty years old even if he looks like five."

A ring of smoke is all he gives, and she steals one of his cigarettes. Bad habit…but somehow, they taste better than hers.

He chuckles, lets her. "I don't see the problem."

Kagome casts down a half-lidded stare. "You don't mind me telling him?"

He exhales slowly. "He's your brother and he needs to know."

She can't argue with that, and she does want to come clean, or she wouldn't have broached the matter. Secrets aren't the same as lies, but sometimes it feels like they are, and sometimes they end in lies.

Her lips curl in gratitude – and relief. "Alright then. I'll tell you how it goes."

Silence stretches, laden with complications, needs, truths, _too late_. If they remain unsaid then they will become secrets, maybe even lies, and there is no room for those between them.

"You said that you're starting to mingle and take human mates or lovers. Do they know what you are?"

"It depends." Something stirs beneath the calm, languorous but curious, one glance of dark eyes. "Usually, no."

They both know where this is going but it's still too soon to go there.

"Why?"

"Unless they want to sire offspring then it's just easier to never know."

 _Easier for who?_ Kagome thinks, and still…she doesn't ask. They fall quiet again – but there is awareness in the silence not there before.

"About that interview." Her voice is _soft_ and heavy with all the things that need to be said.

There is more than awareness now, more than curiosity, silence thicker, eyes darker.

"If you agree to give _The Sentinel_ an exclusive…" She takes a slow drag of her cigarette. Her eyes lower to his mouth. "…I won't ask about what happened in the woods." A thin line of smoke overlaps her gaze, slips between his lips and mixes with his own. "Or what's been happening for months now."

His neck tilts, cords strained with the motion, eyes black and knowing, mapping the swollen welt of crimson where neck fuses with shoulder.

"No deal." He crushes his cigarette violently, and laughs. "You don't want to ask anyway."

Kagome is crushing her cigarette and straddling his waist – she slams her hands down on either side of his face and bends low. Lips on hot lips and anger hotter.

"That's because _I already know_."


	7. Chapter 7

Kagome is twenty six years old when she can stop pretending to be human for her brother's sake. Sōta passes his university exams and she exhales the breath she's been holding in for years when he chooses to move into his dorm instead of commuting there.

It's not that she doesn't love him or can't live with him but much simpler. Innate. There are people who like to be alone and people who can't stand to be alone. Perception of time is also subjective. Kagome doesn't feel like she needs to have contact to maintain or reaffirm connection with her brother. Sōta can disappear for years and she'll still feel the same about him when he returns. But the world humans live in revolves around people who need the confirmation through constant and meaningless contact and that honestly exhausts her. Her brother may not be as exhausting as others but he is… _human_. More human than she's ever been when it comes to such matters.

Kagome can't be bothered to keep making excuses for why it feels that way for her or be accused that she doesn't care when she says the truth. Some people just function differently than others and that's it. Just the idea of spending the whole day with someone or talking for more than a few hours per day is enough to make her want to jump off a cliff. Whoever that person is and no matter how much she loves them.

And when her life isn't going well, she needs to be alone more than ever. She doesn't want to talk about it or have her brother try to cheer her up like she does for him. Kagome just needs to get her act together by herself – but that will happen when she feels she's ready for it to happen and nothing her brother can do will help her.

It's that simple – but it never stops Sōta from trying…and she hates it. Kagome just hates it when her brother meddles in her business then takes it personally when she tells him to stay out of her life. It only ends with Sōta getting pissed off randomly and with no good reason. It only ends with her realizing that her brother is no different than other humans in those moments.

Kagome doesn't understand why humans feel the need to fill up their quota of good deeds by trying to fix other people's lives for them when their life is probably not that much better either. She doesn't even try to meddle in theirs, so they should just do the same. Then again, when she says this, she's a heartless bitch. It's this mentality that pisses her off the most. Kagome will lend a shoulder to lean on if her brother needs her – because she _does love him,_ she _does care_ _about_ _him_ – but she won't go out of her way to volunteer if Sōta doesn't want her to. If he comes to her with a problem, she'll become involved as much as she can, but that's it.

People should deal with their own issues or they will never make it in this world. And she has coddled her brother too much due to their circumstances. It is this lesson she wants Sōta to learn – and so when he moves out…Kagome _breathes_. She can finally stop trying to be human.

* * *

Time moves motionlessly, soundlessly. Smoke lingers, hazes the air. He feels too much – _too much of her_. And even that is not enough. Thighs splitting over his hips, then closing, grinding, pressure, friction. Need written on open face, open lips. Eyes hard and filled with knowledge and seeing nothing beyond what _now_ lives. She is burning over him, pulsing heat in the space and silence between, makes him burn and pulse with her. It is so easy to sink his teeth and claws in the red-hot-flesh of the fire and lose himself in that _now_. He can grow cold _later_. He _will_ grow cold later.

Like _then_.

That _then_ is cold and pain and drags him out of the fire, howling, raging, lost inside the mist that shrouds it. A four-legged berserker searching for something that is no longer there, calling the name of a girl who has no voice to answer.

 _Now_ will become _then_ – and once has been _enough_.

He still feels too much. His mistake, his weakness. Sesshōmaru has provoked the streak of rashness, haunting undertones, and belligerence that is her _now_. The fault lies with him and he is the one who must undo what has been done.

He moves precipitately, one up-slant of eyes and neck, one slick glide of lips and breath.

"Maybe you do." Cold – his voice, his words, his skin. Pain. "But I know more than that."

She shivers, lips tinged blue, glaciated. Or maybe they are still that fire-lust red and he mistakes them for her eyes. It will not be the first mistake he has made today. She is rising then. Sesshōmaru watches as she lifts herself up, settling low on his waist and palms flat against his abdomen, peering down at him through curls of inky strands. She is fury and tight skin and seeing beyond what _now_ lives, nails digging deep, contraction of muscles and thighs.

"She was human, wasn't she?" Nothing but the shiver of her lips and wet-dark-blue. "The woman you loved – and lost."

Is he that transparent? Probably. Then why is she the only one who can see him? See _then_?

He wants to laugh, and he does, but his throat is too raw for laughter. Is that even laughter?

"Yes…no."

A gasp full of breath and shock, nails digging deeper, thighs gripping tighter – but what does she expect?

"She was human…but she never became a woman."

She leaves then. Maybe because she knows what that sound is.

Sesshōmaru drowns his laughter in alcohol – but the taste of her _now_ remains in the last sip at the bottom of the glass no matter how many times he empties it.

 _Rin…once is enough, isn't it?_

* * *

Her heart beats against her ribcage in a bruising tempo as if to remind her that it is still there…and that it hurts to live. Kagome barely makes it inside before her knees give out and she is slumping to the floor, the impact bone-rattling and another reminder. She knows Sesshōmaru is still outside, and he will be there for a while, quietly, burning away the cold, no more pain howling in that laughter.

Why must everything between them be so _goddamn hard_?

Kagome has pressed enough, perhaps too far. It isn't in her nature to press because she hates being pressed – and right now…she's pressing both of them. She can't keep pressing without something breaking and tonight she's heard the crack – chest cracked open and sultry flesh turning inside out, heart and lungs exposed to the puncture of jagged bone, swelling as blood clots with each vein inflation. It is a roaring hemorrhage, a sound she never wants to hear again.

Her hands feel clammy and the rapid consumption of unprocessable air conjures a phantasmagoria of sensations and things unseen – blood webbing her fingers, marbling her skin as it coagulates slowly, palms full of weight that throbs with living matter. She holds it delicately and wonders whose heart is cut out and writhing in the nest of her hands.

She doesn't know…because all hearts look the same on the outside – and if she wants to see what this heart is made of inside without breaking something…then she needs to stop pressing and peel the layers off one by one until the core is naked and warm and thrums for her touch.

Nothing between them is ever easy. She doesn't have enough time to give, and it grows shorter the longer he doesn't take what is his, what lies soft and whole in his hands. Perhaps it will die there…never being touched.

* * *

Sunrays filter through the glass pane, frost of light, morning greys and the smell of coffee. Kagome turns her face away, a cigarette wisping smoke at the corner of her mouth. It's too early for Inuyasha to wake, too late for her to sleep. Bitter scents and the gloom of sleeplessness suffuse the quiet. She brings the coffee cup to her mouth and takes a slow sip. Black, sugarless, no cream. Not the way she likes her coffee but she can't be bothered with flavoring additions right now. She isn't even in the right mind to think.

Minutes pass. Kagome closes her eyes and rubs her lids. Her coffee has grown lukewarm, half-watery, half-bitter, by the time Sesshōmaru comes into the kitchen. Out of habit, she makes another pot, refilling Sesshōmaru's cup before hers, then she sits down across from him. And Sesshōmaru lights a cigarette.

Seconds pass. There is nothing but the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and spirals of smoke. And tension. A sigh disrupts the quiet – Kagome is the one to initiate conversation, slashing through the vibes, though her tone borders on detachment…with a touch of weariness.

"I've been wanting to ask for a while now…" She pauses until she's garnered his attention.

Sesshōmaru is watching her over the rim of his cup with that natural raptness in his eyes. But there is something unfamiliar… _and familiar_ –

 _Gold_. His eyes are light and dark, visceral color, mirror-flame. He's burnt out, she realizes. Maybe he isn't even aware that his concealment is slipping. Or maybe he is and just doesn't care. It makes no difference. She likes that lick of gold, that slice of black in it, the feral origins bleeding through his porcelain mask.

A smile flits across her face. It's a losing battle – and she needs some damn sugar in her coffee. Kagome shakes her head, fixes herself another cup, exactly as she likes it, then sits back down.

"There are more of your kind, right?" He nods once. "Then why haven't you brought anyone to meet Inuyasha?" She leans back in her chair, arms crossed, gaze piercing. "He can't be around humans 'til he grows up, but he should be among his kind."

A brow arches, and he finally speaks. "You'd be comfortable having other yōkai in your home or here?"

His voice has regressed to something gravelly, arousing. Kagome can tell that it is merely another effect of overworking, enhanced by last night's overdrinking, but it still wrings one will-less moan out of her throat.

"Yes." More moan than pronunciation of _yes_ and more mindless _yes_ than answer. Kagome sighs, steers thought where it should be. "Why wouldn't I be comf–"

 _Oh_. Her eyes bore into his for a split second, but it isn't his eyes that give the reason behind his question. That quirk of his lips, sordid amusement with a twist of _pity_ , tells her everything. He's taken that _yes_ the way it is meant to be taken – and he still can't take it. Kagome grits her teeth but doesn't press. She's done pressing.

"Izayoi-san wasn't." It's a statement that implies another _. I'm not her_.

Sesshōmaru grunts something inaudible as he takes a drag of his cigarette then takes a moment.

"There's a kit in my pack around his age. I'll bring him next time." Kagome stares at him, confounded, intrigued. Pleased. It appears he's waiting for her to nod, so she does, and he continues. "And some adults in the clan who'd like to meet Inuyasha. I can give them your phone number, and you can arrange meetings when it's convenient for you." Before she can nod again, Sesshōmaru's eyes cut her sharply. "I'd like to be present for those, though."

It is _not_ a request. Gold-eyed order, dominance, strikingly inhuman.

Kagome nods stiffly. "Okay, thanks." But when she revisits his words, something piques her curiosity. Her neck slants, and she frowns. "A kit? That's a…fox child, right?"

It is he who nods this time. Sesshōmaru fathoms the silent question without her having to ask.

"All clans are mixed. We don't form clans based on yōkai species but rather on territory. Anyone within my territory belongs to my clan, though not all are pack."

From what he says, it is evident he's the clan leader, but that's not what interests her. She has guessed more or less that he's a prominent figure in both worlds.

"How many clans are there?"

"In Japan, four." He exhales a puff of smoke, though it sounds more like a sigh. "I keep track of clans in other countries, but there are too many to count. Yōkai have spread all over the world after Japan ended its self-isolation."

Her mien softens. Her respect grows. No wonder he's fatigued if he has to deal with both human and yōkai matters. Kagome wants to learn more now – about him, his responsibilities, the way he lives, the way he rules.

"How is a clan different from a pack?"

There isn't the merest twitch of lips, the merest blink of eyes, but something manifests on his face, betrays his surprise, his skepticism. He wants to know why she asks when she's never asked before, why she's taken an interest that is broader, more generalized. It amuses her – because it is as forthright as it is canny. She wants to know all that makes him _what he is_. Because _she wants him_. He must be so used to wiles that the concept of their inexistence must be foreign to him.

Kagome chuckles softly, and his gaze narrows. Perhaps the soft sound has shapeshifted into a wile merely because it can be nothing else in his perception. It's not bad actually, rather flattering. She likes that he thinks her kind of shrewd when she is just being shamelessly genuine.

Sesshōmaru appraises her, half-lidded, intently. What he finds must be enough to guarantee his divulgence. "Clan mates owe allegiance, and I'm responsible for them, but pack mates have deeper bonds. You're either born in a pack or accepted in one, and the latter rarely happens."

Kagome hums, contemplating these discoveries, rubbing her chin between two fingers. Yōkai aren't much different than humans. Supposedly. Based on her limited knowledge and basic understanding of the terms from what she's learned so far. Pack seems to enclose the meaning of family more or less. But if that is so…where does _she_ fall in all this? She isn't pack as far as she knows – Sesshōmaru hasn't made any declaration of acceptance that would indicate this – and she can't be clan since she isn't yōkai. Does she even hold any place in his world? Does she want to? It feels very…intimate – the way he has spoken that word. _Pack_. It feels like…another word. So much more than family. _Mine_.

Heat licks her skin, sets every nerve in her body on fire, and she shivers. Kagome clears her throat, speaks above the hot coals. "So packs usually consist of same species yōkai?"

A dip of his chin. Sesshōmaru stays quiet, tasting the silence, the fire that burns beneath flushed skin.

"How is it that there's a kit in yours then?" Her voice pours out of her throat husky and how she says _yours_ is a coil of fire, a selfish want indulged.

"His father was a close friend of mine. Kiyoshi mated a kitsune of another clan, and that caused a rift between him and his pack. When he died, she didn't want to return to her clan, and Kiyoshi's pack accepted the kit but not her." He stares at her in the descent of silence and something tameless, animal-sensation, something that is pure instinct. "Yōkai need to _belong_ to a pack."

 _Yours…yes_. She burns – but it slowly turns into another kind of fire, less heat, less sizzling. _Warmth_. Respect. "So you took care of his family." A smile curves her lips. "I'd like to meet her, if she doesn't mind humans?"

His head tilts and his laughter is a deep rumble that stokes the dying embers. "Hanae is very fond of humans."

Kagome sips her coffee. It has grown cold again and cools the hot flesh of her throat. "Why didn't she want to return to her clan? I assume she had a pack there?"

"You'll have to ask her yourself." A careless shrug of his shoulders. "It didn't matter to me."

 _Ah._ She understands what pack is, what he is, a little bit more then. _I take care of what is mine_ is all she hears. For someone like her…it is an anathema. She _doesn't_ want to be taken care of, and right now, that is the only thing he can give her.

Kagome laughs. It slithers inside her ears saccharine and bitter, medicine of an unrequited want. Her gaze lifts, connects with his, the blue matted, sapped, the color of that unwanted medicine.

"I'd also like for Inuyasha to meet your mother since he'll be living under her roof in the future. It'll be better in the long run if he grows accustomed to her."

There's a miniscule pause, weighed down by reluctance, or maybe because he doesn't like the taste of that hue in her eyes either.

"I'll discuss this matter with her."

"If she agrees –"

"You want to be there – I know."

* * *

 _A/N: This is the last of the pre-written chapters. Updates will resume at a much slower pace now. Thank you all for the wonderful reviews, alerts, favorites. :)_


	8. Chapter 8

Kagome is seventeen years old when she fathoms that the currency of this world is _power_. Everything else is facsimile. Ideals that may never have been more than impressions in the minds of intellectuals, night-dreamers plied with deadly opiates once upon a time.

She is working two jobs and has university entrance exams and Sōta is in primary school and her mother is useless – and she falls ill. One of her coworkers is _kind_ enough to cover for her, as long as she takes his shifts for the next month. One of her classmates is _kind_ enough to lend her his notes, as long as she does his assignments for the next month. One of her neighbors is _kind_ enough to watch Sōta, as long as she babysits her kids for the next month. Their _kindness_ tastes bitter – more bitter than the medication she has to swallow.

The law of supply and demand is an economic appliance of human interaction – and the only thing that matters. There is always a price that must be paid.

* * *

Smells of jasmine tea and cinnamon buns saturate the small space of the kitchen, thickly sweet and overlaying the tartness of unease. Inuyasha has curled himself into Kagome's lap, stealing glances at the strange visitors, mouth clamped shut, curious, wary. Kagome has welcomed the pair of old yōkai into her home with polite reservation after receiving their phone call two weeks ago, but she doesn't know what to expect, and so she has let Sesshōmaru make the introductions and speak on her behalf up until now.

They don't appear much threatening but they aren't like the elders of her race. There is something youthful and sprightly in the way they carry themselves that contradicts their age and the wrinkled folds of their skin. What bewilders her most is the fact that one of them is in his natural form. Kagome has never seen an anthropomorphic…flea. A flea that wears traditional clothing, talks with excessive fanfare, and stares longingly at the vein bulging on her neck each time she takes a lungful of air.

"Oh, Inuyasha-sama! What joy to finally meet!" The flea, tersely introduced as Myōga by Sesshōmaru, breaks out in a startling cry of delight, tears misting his eyes, leaping up and down on the kitchen table. "You look just like your father!"

Inuyasha perks up at the mention of his father, shifts in Kagome's lap, leaning forward, awe filling his eyes. Shyly, he seeks his brother's gaze, and when Sesshōmaru gives the barest nod, he finally opens his mouth.

"You knew papa?"

"Yes, of course!" Myōga puffs out his chest, smug, grinning, basking in the child's attention. "I, the great Myōga, was the general's most trusted advisor and fought many battles by his side." His leaping accelerates in a manic tempo. Arms outstretched, bouncing with glee, he jumps down and beckons Inuyasha to join him in the living room. "Come, come – I have many stories to tell you!"

It is Kagome's eyes Inuyasha now seeks, her approval. Smiling, she ruffles his hair, then lowers him to the floor, and the boy is sprinting after the flea. Eager, flushed with excitement, his initial wariness overcome by the need to know more of his father.

Kagome shakes her head, chuckling, the sound merging with another, grittier. Open laughter, full of gravel and amusement. Her gaze turns to its source, the other yōkai. Tōtōsai, she recalls.

"Just like his father indeed." Tōtōsai winks at her with a glint of mischief in his eye. "The general used to hide behind women's skirts all the time."

Kagome can't help her snicker. "Heh."

"Tōtōsai." Low, deep. Sesshōmaru's voice dominates the room, and the old yōkai near blanches.

Tōtōsai's laughter dries up into a cough at the admonishment. "It was but a jest! Forgive this senile old man, Sesshōmaru-sama." He scratches the hairless top of his head, visibly shrinking under Sesshōmaru's stare. "In fact, my memory fails me in my old age. The great Dog General had no interest in females. No interest at all!"

"Tōtōsai." Still low, still deep.

Tōtōsai shrinks further into his seat, barks another coughing laugh. "Well, that is not to say _no interest_ …" Those glinting eyes focus on Kagome once more. Appraising, deviously narrow. "I'm sure he'd have loved to –" His sentence is cut off abrupt, sweat beading his brow. "Ach, my tongue betrays me again! Pay no mind to the ramblings of an old man, Sesshōmaru-sama." He clears his throat then stands awkwardly. "In fact, I will take my leave now that I have bequeathed the young lord with his heirloom."

Kagome frowns. Sesshōmaru hasn't even spoken this time – but something thickens the density of the air, crawls along the pathway of her spine, seeps in the wet flesh of her tongue. It feels… _sentient_. Power transmuted into nerve-sensation, condensed into pure essence. She shivers, curls her tongue inside her mouth, tingling with the aftertaste of its purity.

Tōtōsai's words sink in her mind, and she directs her gaze to the rusted piece of metal that lies innocuous on the kitchen table. It can be nothing but an heirloom now, if it has ever been a sword. Perhaps she can ask Sesshōmaru later.

She sighs softly, smiles at the brash-spoken yōkai. "You're welcome to visit again, Tōtōsai-san."

"Oh, no, no no no, I much prefer my caves, and I'm too old to adapt to the new ways." Tōtōsai waves a bony hand before his face then bows his head. "Sesshōmaru-sama." With that said and a last crooked smirk, he leaves.

When Kagome returns to the kitchen after she has escorted Tōtōsai to the door, Myōga's pompous retellings of Inu no Taishō's victories and Inuyasha's piping squeals are resounding off the walls in a mixed cacophony that promises a vicious migraine. If it's that bad for her then it must be ten times worse for Sesshōmaru's sensitive hearing. Kagome closes the kitchen door, muting a great hunk of the noise, and cleans the table. She starts the coffee pot, and while it is brewing, she washes the dishes.

Fifteen minutes later, there are two cups of steaming coffee on the table, two lit cigarettes, and silence waiting to be broken.

"So." Kagome stares at him, lips half-slanted in a cross between a smirk and a grin. "I take it your father was rather…fond of women?"

Her tone is mirthfully wry, but when he replies, his is one flat line of wryness devoid of mirth. And a grunt.

"Rather is an understatement."

Maybe it is a bit callous of her to make light humor of his father's transgressions given the circumstances. She is really too blunt for such subtle discussions and no manner of elocution will smooth the edges. A sigh whooshes out of her lungs. It is better to just outright ask – and so she does.

"Did he have many affairs?"

"Only one." He exhales one smoke-licked breath, the corners of his mouth lifting slowly. "He had never acted on these impulses before Izayoi, though he had come close many times."

Kagome observes that almost-smile. He is amused…but in a cynic, cruel expression of amusement, and underneath that, old-living wrath festers in his veins. She doesn't want to touch _that_. She doesn't know _why_ she does.

"Are you angry at him for having an affair?"

"No." There is warning in his voice, and the way he's staring at her slashes through flesh and bone, but it is not a predator she sees. He is like a wounded beast lashing out after being hunted into a corner, and she feels the fangs, the claws, the hints of fear underneath the monstrous rage. Skin shredded to thin strips, streams of hot blood, protrusions gleaming bone-white. _Pain_. She can't tell who hurts the most.

 _Don't ask._ Every molecule in her body screams at her to leave it be. _Just don't._ And yet…

"But you _are_ angry at him. If not for having an affair then why?"

Kagome licks her wounds and savors the taste of her blood. She cuts herself on him and it feels good. Perhaps she is a masochist with a fetish for flesh-cutting eyes. Or perhaps she is as shrewd as he once has thought her to be. It will not be long before the fangs sink gum-deep into the writhing flesh and blood devours the bone until he is trapped inside her.

"How did he die?" It is a blood-choked whisper, an insidious incentive. _Bite deeper_. Deeper.

"Killed." His eyes are sharper but still not sharp enough. She needs _more_.

"Is that why you're ang–"

"No." There is no warning in his voice, and the way he's staring at her strokes the seething gashes. Tenderly, spitefully. "It was his damn fault for letting himself get killed."

She knows that this is the end, the killing strike, the last words she will speak.

" _Why_ are you angry at him?"

He sinks those fangs deep inside her neck and tears her throat apart.

"Because _he made me care for humans_."

And as the blood heats and gorges itself on bone, she knows her _why_. He is as cut on her as she is on him and she wants him to feel the pain, the need, the fire, the madness. She wants him to _let her love him_. Even if it is a vicious kind of love fed on time bleeding out.

* * *

It is late spring and the sun is a fire-tongue of blood orange that laves every inch of exposed skin. Kagome lies sprawled on lush pillows inside the gazebo at the center of the garden and watches Inuyasha as he is chased around by something green and haughty and screeching. Sesshōmaru has called it Jaken and it is a rather strange lifeform with vitality that far exceeds its miniscule stature…and a whole lot of attitude. But Inuyasha seems to be enjoying himself and she can tell that the shōyōkai poses no danger. Sesshōmaru has claimed that Jaken has been serving his family for centuries with unfailing loyalty. She supposes the imp-like creature is akin to a reluctant babysitter and spares no further thought to the matter.

The garden she finds herself in is part of the estate Sesshōmaru and his mother dwell in the world of humans. A poor replica, he has said, of the garden in her sky fortress where she spends most of her time. She finds the term _poor_ appallingly inapt, hard to believe by her standards, but then again, she is only human.

There are birches and maples and other trees with willowy bark that glimmers pearl-white as it siphons the sunlight. But it is the sakura trees that captivate her, the milk-wine of their blossoms, the fragrant notes released in the breeze with every ripple and delicate sway. Kagome breathes in the brightness, the floral essences, the ripeness of spring, and waits for Sesshōmaru's mother.

Silk susurrates, announces her presence, then spreads and arranges itself in regal patterns as she takes a seat beside Kagome. Her face is bare of illusion, youthful endlessness on perfect skin, maroon ink on lids and cheekbones and curled lips. Perhaps she is the illusion. Frost of passion, marrow of sapience, wind chime, cherry redness. She is beauty personified, an otherworldly sovereign, vessel for the ethereal.

Kagome wets her sapped lips, spine stiff and straight under this onslaught of excruciating grace.

"Taishō-san." The surname Sesshōmaru has chosen does not befit the nature of this woman. It aggrandizes power in blunt, masculine force, but it is the only form of address Kagome has. Politeness coils in her smile, smothers the lingering distaste Kagome holds for yōkai customs – customs that have seen a child orphaned of mother and tenderness. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Is it truly?" Amusement flashes in the gold of her eyes – canny glint and mockery. "No matter. Do call me Madoka. I care not for this human notion of surnames."

Kagome flinches, taken aback a little. Word games, she has expected, even prepared herself for despite her aversion to subterfuge, but not this equivocal frankness. Traps laid in open fields beneath her naked feet, poisons hidden in fresh grass. It is no wonder the woman prefers her given name. A circle has no weak points, no endings, no beginnings. No escape.

Inuyasha's antics draw their attention, child-laughter free falling, Jaken's squawks at his heels. Keen eyes follow the small figures, curiously watchful, with the stillness of a waiting snake, then Madoka hums behind the opulent feathers of her fan.

"He resembles his father more than Sesshōmaru."

Kagome inclines her neck, emulates the bell-like hum, missing half the comparison. "So I've been told."

"You have not seen murals of my late mate, have you?" Honey in her voice, and a drop of bitterness, not enough to ruin its mellifluence, to make it less than what it is. A slithery lure.

"I'm afraid not." Kagome keeps her expression neutral, vaguely interested, even though she knows each word is honeycombed with purpose.

"Would you like to?" Madoka smiles, sharpness peeking through, and it is boon, and bait. Guile and challenge enameled on the tips of her fangs.

"Yes, I'd love to." What else can she say? Kagome has been guided so artfully, and still…the _where_ stays elusive. She can only smile back, showing even teeth and unfelt feeling.

"Perhaps later then."

A filament of something _genuine_ threads itself into that fanged smile. Genuine but indecipherable. Kagome casts a shallow glance at her, and another more intent, but all that remains is its afterimage and bright-dark eyes. Satisfaction, she guesses, mutated into something inhuman. Her smile grows hard, one curve of titanium, and she offers sore gratitude for the _offer_.

"Madoka-san." The name rolls off metallic and sleek as it slides down the edge of a knife. _Enough games_. "I'm not versed in yōkai etiquette, and it's not my intention to be rude, but may I ask you a few questions?"

There is no need for such courtesy, not when hostility blackens her mien, but Kagome is reluctant to relinquish control, no matter how tenuous, how breakable it has become.

"Kagome, is it?" Laughter rises from the shadow of the name, shapes cursed meaning from its origins. "The name does not suit you."

 _I_ see _you, little human. I see what you are and what you are not. I see your_ eyes _, and they cannot bind that which is unseen. It only binds itself to you out of its own will, its own desire. Your eyes are shifting promises, and when they seek the void, so too it shall._ Truths below the threshold of awareness, echoes out of space and time, their existence another culmination of a contract half-fulfilled. An inferno rages under her skin, eyes crying dark matter, and she is melting, and she is screaming. She is _not made to see_.

Somewhere deep in the haze, between fragments of _now_ and _then_ and burning wormwood – she comes awake. Kagome blinks once, and again, then swallows thickly. Her vocal cords feel raw, hallucinations carved inside her throat. "Pardon?"

"The blade cannot cut while it is sheathed." A smile again, more soft red-flesh, less feral, no intimidation in it. "So ask your questions, little human."

 _Ah_. Kagome understands at last. Whatever has come has passed, and what will come is hers to divine. She has been tried, dealt her sentence, and left to resurrect herself inside its cooling embers. All she has is questions already given answer.

"Will you care for Inuyasha?" Fire on her tongue, fire in her eyes, worthless provocation. It is only for the sake of broken pride that she even dares to ask, and when Madoka humors her, another precious piece her price, she pretends it is still whole, unbroken.

"He is my mate's son. I will care for him as I have cared for my own son."

"I see." As the vowels elongate into fine points and drag across the silence, so does her victory. Steep-earned, just like those smiles. "Thank you, Madoka-san. That answers all of my questions."

It doesn't end there, of course. Sometimes, last words cannot choose between vanquisher and the vanquished. Sometimes, they belong to the one who has the cruelty to speak them.

"I suppose it is my turn now?" One rustle of feathers, and merciless precision. "Will you care for my son?"

Kagome can't decide which is more superfluous…the pause, or that lithe flick of her wrist? Yet the transition is somehow seamless, the intention exacerbated, compelling a reaction of equal fervor, easily obliged.

"I _do_ _care_ for him." It is too little when put into words, and too much to be shackled inside.

"It is he who does not care for himself, yes?" She laughs – her laughter is cold, numbs where it falls, then sizzles until it becomes an ice-burn. "But when the cage is empty, and he is trapped there alone, who will care for him then?"

Kagome can't blame the woman for loving her son, even if her love comes and goes with the blood moons. Madoka rises and links her arm with hers. Skin-heat disguises what prowls beneath – cold blood, an infernal taste for sacrifice, the ruthlessness of mother-instinct. Kagome still can't blame her.

"Come. I think it is time I showed you those murals."

* * *

She is standing before the mural that has no place in this time when Sesshōmaru comes for her. His gaze travels from girl to woman, lifeless to living, and back again. Rin stares out with dark-honey-eyes, swathed in innocence and brilliant color, sun-smiling, sun-glowing. Sesshōmaru remembers her under the sun, and then he remembers her under the moon…taken by death, taken with death.

"What was her name?"

She speaks softly, quietly, as if raising her voice will rob her of the things she wants, like all the women he has known. Sesshōmaru gives the name she seeks – because it is nothing compared to what she wants.

"Rin."

"She's pretty."

A tide brews under her skin, threatens to crest over her lips – he can hear its fury in the roaring of her pulse.

"Your…daughter?"

 _Daughter…for me…yes._ "Yes."

Half-truth, half-curse. It is too late for Rin to speak for herself, and Sesshōmaru can never repeat the last words she has spoken.

"When did she…die?"

"Centuries ago. The first time, she was killed by wolves. We were at war with the ōkami of the Eastern clan and her village was on the battle grounds. It was decimated and only Rin survived. She cared for me when I was injured at the cost of her life. I brought her back and she chose to stay with me."

The tide ebbs, vaporized by the flame of its fury – he can hear it waning in her breathless gasp.

"And the second?"

Sesshōmaru remembers her under the fire, black scars burning, the smell of need-despair-waiting-loathing in the smoke.

"Because she loved me."

* * *

 _A/N: Happy New Year! It has been a long time, my loves. Life has been…difficult, and I'm still recovering. I hope you've all been well, and happy, and loved. :)))_


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